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EVERY DAY LIVING 



EVERY DAY 
LIVING 



BY 
ANNIE PAYSON CALL 

Author of "Power through Repose," "The Freedom of 
Life" "As a Matter of Course" etc. 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1905, 1906, by 
Colver Publishing House 



Copyright, 1906, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 

This edition published in October, 1906. .«* * l / C 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

OCT 1 5 1906 

* CopyrieM Entry 

cuss a ^••yj; 

COPY B. 









T/ie Plimpton Press Norwood Mass, U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Home 1 

II. The Training of Children ... 16 

III. Good Breeding 33 

IV. The Use of Time 47 

V. Money Strain 60 

VI. Concerning Resentment .... 74 

VII. Excuses and Back Talk .... 86 

VIII. Personal Sensitiveness .... 101 

IX. Selfish Suffering 115 

X. The Selfishness of Being Good . 131 

XI. The Other Point of View . . . 142 

XII. The Greatest Need of College Girls 158 

XIII. Diversions 191 

XIV. Every day Living 202 



EVERY DAY LIVING 



THE HOME 

WE believe that, however hard our 
lot may be, we should accept it 
willingly, and should welcome the most 
difficult circumstances of life as oppor- 
tunities for gaining strength of character 
and the power of helpfulness to others, 
and that we should never, on any account, 
regard our personal burdens as limita- 
tions. We believe that, however dis- 
agreeable, unkind, or unjust other people 
may be, we should never wilfully object 
to their unkindness or injustice, but 
should cultivate the habit of first looking 
to ourselves to see whether the criticism 
we receive is not justified by facts, and 

1 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

whether our critics are not right in their 
opinions with regard to us. However 
unjustly or unkindly we may be criticised, 
or opposed by others, we can only properly 
blame ourselves for the resentment which 
their criticism may arouse in us, and we 
should hold ourselves strictly responsible 
for a just and kindly attitude toward 
them. When we ourselves are entirely 
free from anger or resentment, we shall 
be able to judge with charity and fair- 
ness, and this will help us, in some cases, 
to lighten the load of antagonism or un- 
friendliness in the hearts of our critics. 

We believe that the control of outward 
action without regard to the motive be- 
hind it is nothing but external repression, 
and that the only self-control which is 
real is the control of our motives from 
interior conviction carried out into prac- 
tical life, without regard to the praise or 
blame of the world. When we are quiet, 
uncomplaining, kind, generous, and lov- 

2 



THE HOME 

ing because we truly love that attitude 
of heart and mind, then we are working 
in accordance with laws that are higher 
and more powerful than we, and working 
steadily in obedience to these laws is the 
only possible way to gain our freedom. 
We know that such freedom must be 
worked for, and that we cannot gain it 
without hard and steady labor. We 
know that on this laborious journey we 
are liable to trip and tumble many times, 
and that we must not dwell on our fail- 
ures, but must pick ourselves up directly 
and walk steadily forward with full 
assurance that, when once we are per- 
mitted a clear realization of the goal we 
are striving for, no drudgery will seem 
too arduous, no suffering too keen, if it 
is the means of leading us to victory, 
freedom, and the power of helping others. 
It is to show the practical working of 
these principles in various circumstances of 
life that this new series of papers is written. 

3 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

Being "in love" is very different from 
loving, and may be only a selfish emotion 
which is the direct opposite of loving. 
Being in love without loving is bondage, 
— sometimes pleasant and sometimes 
painful, but always bondage. True lov- 
ing means freedom, — freedom both for 
ourselves and, as far as it is in our power 
to give it, for all whom we love; for, when 
we truly love another human being, we 
love him for the sake of his best strength, 
his best use, and his best happiness, and 
not at all for the sake of ourselves. 

There was once a mother of a family 
who was very much "in love" with her 
husband, — and he — the father of the 
family — was in love with himself. He 
prided himself upon being a good dis- 
ciplinarian, and upon bringing up his 
family in the way that they should go, 
which meant in reality that he wilfully 
dominated them, and did not allow them 
to develop in accordance with their best 

4 



THE HOME 

possibilities. He worked persistently to 
mould his children according to his own 
ideas, ignoring traits of character and 
peculiarities of temperament which did 
not appeal to him. Thus he uncon- 
sciously encouraged the development of 
certain forms of evil while severely re- 
straining others. The mother was so 
afraid of displeasing her husband that, 
although her nature w^as delicate, and she 
therefore might have been of real ser- 
vice to her children, she sacrificed her 
better judgment for the sake of keeping 
his approval. The result was a life of 
constant strain for all the members of 
the family. The suffering of the children 
from fear and suppression was intense, 
for they had no natural outlet for their 
pain, and all the strain was stored up in 
their little brains to appear later, when 
they were grown men and women, either 
in the form of more suffering, or of self- 
indulgence, which was the natural re- 

5 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

action from the restraint and bondage of 
their childhood. 

Not only were the children of this 
family in the strain of continual bondage, 
but the mother suffered intensely from 
the conflict between her bondage to her 
husband and her natural motherly love 
for her children She understood the 
children better than their father did, and 
seemed to have a sub-conscious sense 
that she was sacrificing them to their 
father's wilfulness and to her own selfish 
desire to please her husband. The event- 
ual effect upon the mother was a severe 
nervous illness. 

The father was under the strain of his 
own self-conceit, for the peculiar effort 
which a conceited man makes to guard 
his own supposed dignity is a constant 
source of strain. If his temperament is 
sensitive it is likely to break down in 
course of time, and if not, his nature 
becomes coarser as he grows older. 

6 



THE HOME 

There was another family in which 
the strain and bondage was quite as 
great, but for a somewhat different reason. 
In this case every one was trying to have 
his own way. Parents and children all 
had different interests, and often came to 
their meals at different times. Each was 
intolerant of all the others, and although 
thev were outwardly too well bred to 
wrangle openly, no one could stay in the 
house anv length of time without being 
oppressed by the strain of disagreement 
which pervaded the atmosphere. It did 
not seem at all surprising that the father, 
mother, and each of the children, as they 
grew up, felt obliged to take trips abroad 
for longer or shorter periods in order to 
get a rest from the strain of home. 

Perhaps the most severe strain in 
family life comes when all the members, 
from an exaggerated regard for external 

Do © 

good conduct, are over- attentive to one 
another without any true understanding 

7 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

or sympathy. While each is oppressed 
by the "kind attentions" of the other, no 
one cares to confess his constraint, for 
fear of seeming unkind, until the family 
atmosphere becomes almost as oppressive 
as it would be under the influence of an 
open hatred. 

I recall two sisters who were of this 
type. Each could not say enough in 
praise of the other, — each was afraid to 
do anything that would be pleasant or 
happy for herself, even though it might 
have been very good and useful, for fear 
that the other might be offended or feel 
"left out." The temperaments of the 
two women were not alike, and their 
interests would naturally have been en- 
tirely different. If each had felt free to 
follow her own interests she could have 
brought the resulting happiness to her 
sister, their lives could have been steadily 
broadening, and through their loving 
respect for each other's point of view 



THE HOME 

their sense of companionship could have 
grown, and they might have been useful 
to one another as sisters and intimate 
friends. But this habit of mere external 
consideration, the constant fear of dis- 
turbing one another, and the habitual 
refusal to allow to themselves their own 
separate tastes, brought about a strain in 
their relationship which was pitiful to 
those who could discern it, especially as 
they were two good women, capable of 
great usefulness and very real happiness: 
but they were both so set in their habits 
of "kindly consideration' 3 and so wedded 
to their false external standard that it 
seemed impossible that their eyes should 
ever be opened. 

The difficulty in the way of a happy 
change coming to such " kindly' 3 people is 
that, before they can really love one another, 
they must acknowledge the selfish compla- 
cency, the dislike, and even hatred, that 
lie beneath their kindly external attitude. 

9 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

Such an acknowledgment would be 
absolutely contrary to what they consider 
their finer sensibilities, and also contrary 
to the cherished conviction of each one, 
— that she is unselfishly devoted to the 
other. If one were surprised in an un- 
conscious expression of annoyance and 
dislike, she would be sincerely shocked 
at the discovery of her own hatred, would 
turn away from it, and would learn 
tolerance and the love of leaving others 
free, and, best of all, would learn that it 
is only possible to be really near and 
loving to others as we also respect their 
freedom. 

If, in the case of the overbearing father 
and the weak mother, the father had 
become aware of his conceit and over- 
bearing will and had used his higher will 
and clearer judgment to avoid all re- 
sistance to what annoyed him in his wife 
and in his children, his eyes would have 
been opened to their real needs, and the 

10 



THE HOME 

atmosphere of the family would have 
gradually become warm and clear instead 
of cold and oppressive. Or if the mother 
had been perfectly willing that her hus- 
band should cease to love her for her 
own sake, and had insisted, so far as she 
herself was concerned, upon doing what 
she saw to be right for him and for the 
children, her strong, loving, and unselfish 
attitude might have drawn out the manly 
side of her husband's character, and he 
would in time have grown to love her 
more truly, because her steadfastness 
had opened his eyes. What a difference 
it w T ould have made in the whole future 
of the children! 

One member of a family, by giving up 
resentment and personal resistance, can 
do very much, even single-handed, toward 
bringing a peaceful atmosphere into the 
home. It requires care and thought, and 
a constant giving up of one's own way; 
but the perception of what to do grows 

11 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

wonderfully with the clearing out of 
selfish wilfulness, and the reward is very 
great in increased power for helpful 
service. It often happens that, when 
one member of the family has struck out 
upon this strong, unselfish path, another 
member follows along the same road, 
and so gradually a wholesome contagion 
of unselfish freedom pervades the general 
atmosphere. 

We must mark clearly here the differ- 
ence between a weak yielding for the sake 
of outside peace, which is not in any way 
unselfish, although it may appear so, 
and a yielding from principle and for the 
sake of right. It is never right to yield 
when by doing so we are only increasing 
the selfishness of another person. 

It is very difficult to help people when 
they cover up their real feelings and 
appear on the outside to be satisfied, 
while all the time they are full of discon- 
tent and chronic antagonism inside. The 

12 



THE HOME 

best we can do in such cases is to be sure 
that we ourselves are sincere, and then, 
if in an emergency the antagonism of a 
friend breaks out and comes to the sur- 
face, we can meet it with quiet non- 
resistance, and it will probably consume 
itself in its own fire. The man who has 
cherished antagonism is even more grate- 
ful for relief than any of those who have 
suffered from his hatred. Men and 
women often carry a great burden of 
personal antagonism for the greater part 
of their lives, while concealing it under 
the appearance of kindly consideration for 
others. It would probably surprise us to 
see how often this is the case, and how 
successfully it could be eradicated if it 
were once recognized and acknowledged, 
and a pleasant, natural, loving intercourse 
established in its place. It is largely 
through ignorance that there is so much 
unnecessary bickering, and badgering, 
and quarreling in families. 

13 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

The root of a happy life in a quiet 
home is not mere kindly consideration 
for others; it does not consist in each one 
keeping out of the way in order that the 
others may have their own will, nor only 
in each one respecting the interests of all 
the others. All this may be followed out 
to the letter, and yet there may be no 
spirit of freedom, of joy, or of open 
frankness in the family. The root of a 
truly happy home-life is in a common love 
of obedience to divine law. If we are all 
working with hearty interest to obey the 
same laws in essential matters, the very 
effort of such obedience will make us 
respect each other's freedom as a matter 
of course. It will make us kindly and 
courteous and thoughtful for each other, 
— not primarily for each other's sake, 
but primarily because such thoughtful 
consideration is obedience to essential 
law. As a result of obedience there 
comes a wholesome love for one another, 

14 



THE HOME 

and a mutual understanding, which with- 
out it is quite unattainable. "In essen- 
tials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all 
things charity." There is no Christian 
man or woman in the world who will not 
admit, when put to the test, that love to 
God and to the neighbor is a require- 
ment of essential law, and from this 
essential is derived all that makes a 
home happy, and the house truly orderly 
and attractive. 



15 



II 



THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

There are two families in which the 
children are under exactly opposite in- 
fluences and training, and I have often 
thought how good it would be if the best 
characteristics of one of these families 
could be balanced by the best qualities 
of the other, and how much that is loving 
and wise and useful such a balance 
would develop in the children; and — 
more than that — if these good elements 
could be welded together by the one 
strong quality which both families lack, 
the result to parents and children would 
be full of happiness and power. In the 
first family that I have in mind, the 
parents train their children by line and 
rule; they are gentle and loving to them 

16 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

in speech and in manner, but absolutely 
domineering in their influence. The chil- 
dren live regular lives, are receiving the 
very best education, never eat anything 
that is not nourishing, and have plenty 
of sleep; but, in most cases, they have no 
spontaneity whatever. They are good 
little puppets in the hands of their 
parents. 

Little Tommy is told to be kind to his 
sister, and then it is impressed upon him 
emphatically that he has been kind to her. 

"Now wasn't that good, Tommy, to 
give your apple to your sister? Don't 
you feel much happier than if you had 
not done it?" 

Where do you get a more complacent 
smile than the "I-have-been-good" ex- 
pression on the face of a child ? It is 
sad enough to see such complacency on 
the faces of grown-up people, but on a 
child's face it is more than sad, it is de- 
pressing. 

17 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

If the mother is talking to a visitor 
when a child enters the room, — and if 
the child makes a mistake in manners, 
the conversation — no matter how in- 
teresting — must stop immediately, while 
the visitor is obliged to sit by and listen 
to the elaborate instruction which is in- 
flicted on the poor child. 

"Tommy, give your hand to the 
lady, dear, — no — no, your right hand, 
Tommy. Now say, how do you do, 
Mrs. Smith?" 

Tommy looks silly. 

"Say how do you do, Tommy." 

Finally Tommy gets it out and escapes, 
and, Mrs. Smith's patience having been 
tried to the utmost, she is not likely to 
continue the conversation with the com- 
posure that she had before poor Tommy 
came in. A quiet little talk with Tommy, 
quite by himself, including a special 
agreement by which mother would make 
a little sign of reminder the next time a 

18 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

visitor came, would have done the neces- 
sary work far better and far more happily 
to all concerned, for children respond 
with pleasure to the sense of a little 
special intimacy with their parents. When 
a friendship between parent and child is 
established, and the parent knows how^ 
to develop the friendship, the wholesome 
training of the children goes on apace. 
But the character of the parent must be 
strong and mellow and clear to make 
such friendship possible. 

In the case of this family there is no 
such friendship, but only a carefully 
cultivated appearance of friendship for 
the sake of conscientious domination, 
and, if both parents should suddenly die 
and the children be left to their own re- 
sources, it is most likely that their real 
tendencies to wilfulness and general dis- 
order would burst forth after their re- 
pression and assert themselves vigorously, 
much to the distress of the children them- 

19 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

selves; then, after learning to know their 
faults truly, they would, if their founda- 
tion of character were strong enough, 
finally work their way out to their own 
individuality and true freedom. Per- 
haps some of them would learn strong 
and helpful lessons from all their past 
repression, while others would be left 
scarred so long as they lived in this 
world. The saddest part of it all is that 
these parents are really conscientiously 
devoting themselves to their children, 
and denying themselves in order that 
their children may have all the advan- 
tages which naturally lead to worldly 
success. Not only that, but the parents 
feel that their children's eternal interests 
are first in their own parental hearts and 
minds, and that they are bringing them 
up from that point of view alone. These 
parents are quite sincere in their feeling 
toward their children, and the children 
are quite sincere — so far as I know — 

20 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

in the belief that their parents are wise 
in training them — both spiritually and 
naturally — in the way they should go. 
It w T ould be quite out of the question to 
make either parents or children see the 
conditions as they really are. The chil- 
dren are not only losing all spontaneity 
and becoming like little, galvanized, 
grown-up people, but they are constantly 
getting ill, and the people about wonder 
why Mrs. Smith's children are so often 
ailing, when they are so admirably 
brought up and have so wholesome an 
every-day life. 

If the parents of these children happen 
to take offense and feel that they have 
been injured or neglected by any of their 
friends, the children also take offense, 
and a friend can often perceive the de- 
gree of favor in which he stands with the 
parents by the manners, or lack of man- 
ners, of the children. These children 

are under the chronic influence of "sug- 

21 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

gestion"; their little brains and nervous 
systems are really suppressed or hysteri- 
cal, for they are only thermometers that 
go up and down according to the tem- 
perature of the minds of their parents. 
They are unusually interesting children 
in their possibilities, but they are being 
trained and dominated out of their own 
individualities, so far as that is possible 
in comparatively wholesome external sur- 
roundings. There is much, very much, 
more mind than heart in everything that 
is done for them, and this, of course, kills 
out their warm, spontaneous affection, 
and makes their so-called love morbid, 
clinging, and subservient. 

In the other family, on the contrary, 
there is more heart than mind. The 
children are helped — you can hardly 
call it trained — to be good little boys 
and girls. They are kind and generous 
to one another, and live along in a happy- 
go-lucky way, perfectly devoted to their 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

parents, and with a natural spontaneity 
which is delightful. You feel, at first 
sight, that these children are really them- 
selves. It is charming to see them so 
natural and happy, and so apparently con- 
genial and friendly with their parents 
and with one another. But if you put 
any one of them to a test in which some 
careful thought or strength of character 
is required, you will almost always find 
them wanting. You might as w T ell ex- 
pect the laughing ripples of a brook to 
do the work of a steadily flowing stream, 
as to expect any one of these children to 
meet their difficulties, whether great or 
small, with anything but the most super- 
ficial ideas of right and wrong. The 
brook is beautiful to listen to, and fas- 
cinating in the sunshine, but it is of no 
use whatever to turn a mill-wheel. 

Suppose, for instance, that some one 
has been really unjust to these children, 
and you try to explain that, even though 

23 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

they have been unjustly treated, that is 
no reason why they should be unkind — 
they listen and look blank. Suppose you 
try to say that difficulties in school help 
us to become strong men and women, 
and that we need the hard lessons to gain 
the good strength that comes from learn- 
ing them, — as for instance : 

"Why, Willie, if you did not know 
fractions you would find it very much 
harder to earn your living when you are a 
man." 

In the case of this particular " Willie," 
you will be met with a blank "Ye-e-s," 
long drawn out in a way which is indica- 
tive of absolute inability to comprehend. 
It is curious too, for the children all 
seem naturally intelligent, and it is like 
knocking a bell and finding it will not 
ring, to try them with anything deeper 
than examples of immediate and visible 
cause and effect. 

If the parents thought more intelli- 
24 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

gently, more deeply, and more simply, 
and then made friends with their chil- 
dren, the children's perceptions would 
be clearer and more alive. 

These children are also, to a certain 
extent, under the unwise domination of 
their parents, but they are much more 
spontaneous than the children of the 
other family. 

In both families, if the parents dislike 
you the children dislike you, and all the 
parents' faults are reflected upon the 
children. In the first family they are 
loving and kindly by line and rule, but 
in the second family all the members are, 
in general, more natural and kindly. 

If there were more spontaneous love 
and less line and rule in the first family 
it would be better all around. If there 
were a little more line and rule and a little 
less spontaneity in the second family, 
conditions would be very much improved. 
That is, it would be better if the first 

25 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

family loved more along with their 
thought, and if the second family thought 
more along with their love. But, even 
if that change were made, and the fami- 
lies improved accordingly, the key-note 
of the difficulty would not have been 
struck. The main trouble in both fami- 
lies is that, if the father and the mother 
hate, the children hate; if the father and 
the mother are selfish and resentful, the 
children are selfish and resentful; if the 
father and the mother are personally 
sensitive and too ready to believe them- 
selves injured, the children are personally 
sensitive and too ready to believe them- 
selves injured. 

There is only one possible real way of 
training our children, and that comes 
solely through training ourselves. If 
parents could once become wide-awake 
to this truth, the gain to parents and 
children would be simply incalculable. 
It is comparatively so easy to be full of 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

the responsibility of training our children, 
and full of our own self-importance as 
parents, and, at the same time, never to 
realize the necessity of establishing in 
ourselves the habit of obeying the very 
same laws which we must train our 
children to obey. If we are entrusted 
with a piece of clean white linen which 
belongs to some one else, and insist upon 
handling it every day with dirty hands, 
we must, if quickly and unexpectedly 
called upon to return it, return it soiled 
and disfigured. It is just so with the 
children. If our own hands are not 
clean, their little souls will be marked 
with our finger marks, and in some cases 
the marks will prove to be stains which 
do not come off in the wash — at least 
not in this world. 

Children are entrusted to us, — they 
are not ours. They are little rudiment- 
ary men and women, with individualities 
of their own, and, if they are to be guided 

27 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

toward their best power for use, those 
individualities must have room and oppor- 
tunity to grow. 

If I cannot feel, from the very begin- 
ning of his life, a mutually helpful rela- 
tion with my child, I am not prepared 
to do my duty truly as his father or his 
mother. If I am not as ready to learn 
from my child as to teach him, I am not 
truly ready to guide or to lead him. The 
child was born into the world to obey the 
same laws that his mother and father 
were born to obey, and he can only be 
expected to obey his father and his 
mother in response to their obedience to 
the same laws which they are teaching 
him to obey. A child is quick to feel 
the real obedience in his parents, and to 
respond to the spirit of it in their guidance, 
and equally quick to feel and respond 
to their disobedience and inconsistency. 
If a mother is trustful and quiet, and 

lets herself be permeated with and taught 

28 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

by the gentle, innocent atmosphere about 
her little baby, she will be ready to guide 
him through his hard places by the help 
of the very life the baby has brought 
with him into the world. 

Thus will the companionship begin, 
and thus it will grow with a real ex- 
change between parent and child, until 
the child has grown to maturity and a 
permanent friendship is established. Both 
strict discipline and expansive confidence 
between parent and child become pos- 
sible when the parent has first learned to 
discipline himself, and is living in the 
same spirit of obedience to law which 
he is exacting from his child. A child 
is quick to detect any disobedience on 
the part of his parents, and, if the father 
and mother are ready to acknowledge 
at once the truth of any true criticism, 
they will only gain more respect and 
more prompt obedience from the children 

as a result of their honest frankness. 

29 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

A child who has inherited peculiarly 
selfish tendencies from father or mother 
has the best possible chance to grow in 
strength and unselfishness of character, 
if his parents have recognized those 
tendencies and overcome them in them- 
selves; but, on the contrary, his situation 
is perilous if his father and mother have 
only indulged their selfishness, and are 
therefore ready only to indulge their 
child or be unreasonably severe with him. 

Our books, talks, and lectures — all 
theories upon the training of children — 
are useless, and only raise in us a blind 
fog of intellectual pride and self-impor- 
tance, unless we know, and believe, and 
act upon the principle that no true train- 
ing is possible unless it comes through 
our own loving obedience to laws that are 
given equally to us and to our children. 
When we train our children in the light 
that is given us as a result of our own 
experience in loving obedience, then we 

30 



TRAINING OF CHILDREN 

shall understand where to begin and 
where to end — we shall know how best 
to foster the free development of their 
own individuality, and how best to give 
them the benefit of our own experience. 
There is no selfish love or pride of pos- 
session, no domineering wilfulness, no 
warping family prejudice in the true 
training of children. It is companion- 
ship, real companionship, from first to 
last. While our children are little and 
we must exact obedience from them for 
the sake of teaching them the laws that 
we must ail obey, we should be learning 
from them without their knowledge; but 
after they have matured, the giving and 
the taking should be mutual and con- 
sciously helpful to both parents and 
children. Froebel said: "Come, let us 
live to our children." The German idiom 
can only be rendered into English properly 
by a paraphrase, and it implies a respon- 
sibility to our children for the quality of 

31 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

our own lives. Let us live in such a way 
that our children will understand clearly 
the standards which we hold before our- 
selves, and the spirit in which we are 
laboring to apply them to our daily lives. 
Then it will be possible for us to teach 
the same standards to our children, and 
we shall find the truest companionship 
with them in hearty co-operation accord- 
ing to the common principles which we 
both acknowledge. Even little children 
catch the spirit of a principle through 
their parents 5 influence before they can 
possibly understand its application. It 
is what we are that trains our children 
more — much more — than what we do 
and say. Let us remember always that 
they are little, rudimentary men and 
women, and that it is our duty and privi- 
lege to lead them to their true freedom, 
which we can only do as we find our 
own. 



Ill 



GOOD BREEDING 

A rough-lookixg old man was mow- 
ing the grass just behind the fence in his 
garden. It was a beautiful garden, — so 
beautiful that an elderly lady who was 
walking with her little niece stopped to 
call the child's attention to it. They 
looked over the fence for a few moments 
and talked about the flowers, and finally 
the lady ventured to speak to the old 
man, who, although he was a near neigh- 
bor, had paid no attention to them what- 
ever o 

"Mr, Birch," said the lady, very 
politely, "I should like to take my little 
niece into your garden, if it will not 
trouble you, just to let her get a nearer 
look at these beautiful flowers." 

33 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

"Well/ 5 answered Mr. Birch, without 
raising his eyes from the scythe, "I 
sharn't hender yer." 

The little girl looked up with doubtful 
eyes, but the old lady merely smiled and, 
with a quiet "Thank you," led her niece 
down the steps and into the paths of the 
garden. 

As the two stood for some time admir- 
ing the roses, Mr. Birch passed with his 
scythe over his shoulder. He did not 
hesitate in the least to pass between his 
guests and his roses. 

" These are wonderful roses, Mr. 
Birch," said the lady. 

"Well — y-a-a-s, purty good," answered 
Mr. Birch, and passed on. 

As if by sudden impulse, he turned, 
picked the most beautiful rose of all, and 
handed it to the little girl, stretching his 
arm directly in front of her aunt. The 
child looked at her aunt in shocked sur- 
prise, then at the rose. Her glance was 

34 



GOOD BREEDING 

so quick that, even if Mr. Birch had had 
finer perception, he could hardly have 
noticed it. The lady at once said : 

"How kind of Mr. Birch to give you 
the rose, dear/' 

At this the child's face brightened, she 
took the rose with a quiet little "Thank 
you," and Mr. Birch passed in front of 
them again without a word. When they 
were out of sight and hearing, the child 
held out the rose to her aunt, saying: 

" Here is your rose, Aunt Mary. Wasn't 
he horrid ?" 

"Why, no, dear," said her aunt, "he 
was not really horrid, he liked to have us 
enjoy his garden, — he liked to give you 
the most beautiful flower in the garden, — 
he is very kindly, but he does not know 
how to do things in the pleasantest way." 

"Doesn't know how!" said the little 
girl with a puzzled air. "Why, Aunt 
Mary, he has been in this world ever so 
many years." 

35 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

Finally, after a long silence, she ex- 
claimed thoughtfully: "Aunt Mary, do 
you think Mr. Birch wants to know how 
to do things in the pleasantest way?" 

I once sat next to a man at dinner 
whose manners were courteous and grace- 
ful. He was so well informed that it 
was a delight to talk with him. After 
dinner I spoke of him to a friend, who 
was loud in her praises of his kindness 
to others. She told of one kind deed 
after another, showing how he had antici- 
pated people's needs in many ways to 
relieve and save them from trouble or 
annoyance. When the gentleman came 
into the drawing-room I watched him 
with new interest, and was again im- 
pressed by his grace and ease of man- 
ner. 

Months later I was surprised and glad 
to meet the same man and his wife in an 
English railway carriage. It was a happy 
renewal of our acquaintance and, as we 

36 



GOOD BREEDING 

were all traveling for pleasure, it was 
agreed that we should travel for a few 
weeks together. 

For the first week my admiration grew 
steadily for what seemed to be one of the 
best-bred men I had ever met. But 
gradually it began to dawn upon me that 
his wife was always working to make 
him comfortable, and he was doing 
nothing whatever for her excepting when 
neglect would have been positively dis- 
creditable, or when his kind attention 
could be remarked by others. He always 
spoke to her courteously and appeared very 
fond of her. But his fondness seemed 
based upon the fact that she helped him 
to be comfortable and shielded him from 
annoyance. Since she believed him to be 
a hero, she unconsciouslv nursed his sel- 
fishness, for he sincerely believed himself 
to be a kindly, well-bred, Christian gentle- 
man. A friend who traveled with us was 
ill, and he w T as most thoughtful and gentle 

37 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

in his care of her* His wife did every- 
thing for the invalid that required hard 
work, but she stood in the background 
and let him do all the kind talking. 

Later on we met some friends who 
were not at all to this " gentleman's " 
taste. He struggled with his antagonism 
and covered it with his habitual attitude 
of good manners, but it was finally too 
strong for him, and his rudeness, when 
it at length appeared, was low and 
brutal. I never knew that an apparent 
gentleman could so quickly change into a 
clown. Before our journey was over we 
were the guests of very simple people. 
He had not yet recovered his habitual 
attitude of the beneficent gentleman 
enough to adapt himself, even on the 
outside, to their quiet simplicity, and, 
although it was plain that he was always 
trying to say what would appear pleasing, 
he could not hide his contempt for the 
primitive life of the people around him. 

38 



GOOD BREEDING 

He reminded me of the play which Gil- 
bert wrote called "A Palace of Truth." 
The King had a palace in which every 
one who entered was obliged to say what 
he really thought, while believing that 
he was only saying what he wished other 
people to hear. The Princess sang a 
song and asked one of the courtiers how 
he liked it. "A very ordinary song, 
Your Majesty, very ordinarily sung!" he 
replied, with a low and graceful bow. 
He believed he had said, "A very charm- 
ing song, Your Majesty, very beautifully 
sung!" — and so, in this Palace of Truth, 
one character after another was exposed 
for what it really was, until the King, 
having become subject to the same con- 
ditions by losing his protecting amulet, 
was only too glad to move his court to 
their habitual surroundings. 

The well-mannered man of whom I 
have been writing was in a veritable 
Palace of Truth while he was subject to 

39 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

the test that his unwelcome companions 
had unconsciously imposed upon him, 
but he did not take true advantage of the 
test in the sense of learning thereby to 
see himself more clearly. Only other 
people who saw him were enlightened 
and helped to understand that good 
manners and kind actions are not neces- 
sarily well bred or really kind. 

The personality whom I have tried to 
sketch is an extreme example, but he is a 
true expression of what we see about us 
every day in milder and less offensive 
forms. We do not realize, and so the 
fact is brought to our attention, how 
many men and women there are who are 
well behaved, — we cannot call them well 
bred, — because they want to stand well 
in what they consider to be the best 
society. It is a good plan to look care- 
fully into ourselves and to consider the 
sincerity of our own good manners; if 
we look with a desire to know the truth 

40 



GOOD BREEDING 

we shall probably find in ourselves more 
than one touch of good behavior which 
is simply for the sake of appearing well 
to others; more than one touch of good 
manners which is not in any sense well 
bred. If we have the perception to dis- 
cover the unreal quality of our own lives, 
the very perception of it will assure us 
that we have behind it the possibility of 
true good breeding, and, if we are vigilant 
in avoiding all false appearances, it will 
not be long before good manners, with- 
out the motive of sincere kindliness, will 
be more hateful to us than bad manners 
themselves. 

If we could know that good manners 
do not make good breeding, any more 
than artificial flowers make a garden; if 
we could only appreciate the truth of that 
fact fully, and act upon it, it would be of 
the greatest service in uncovering the 
conventional hypocrisy of the world. 

Good breeding is a sincere, kindly con- 
41 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

sideration for others put in its pleasantest 
and most delicate form. 

The rough gardener was not well bred, 
for although he was kindly, he had lived 
for years without caring to put his kindli- 
ness into pleasant forms, and there must 
have been some sort of selfish indulgence 
in the man to prevent his perceiving the 
crude, almost repulsive form of his kind- 
liness. A man can be gracious without 
being polished. It is even possible for a 
man to have good manners in essentials, 
and yet eat with his knife, although of 
course it is pleasanter when his good 
manners extend to non-essentials. We 
all know under what social disadvan- 
tages Abraham Lincoln grew up, and 
yet one of his contemporaries, in speak- 
ing of his bearing, said of him that "he 
had a dignity which a king might envy 
and a common man despise." 

The selfish man who seemed thought- 
fully considerate of others and whose 

42 



GOOD BREEDING 

manners were finished in every detail 
certainly was not well bred, for his con- 
siderate kindness was only his way of 
indulging his own selfish love of admira- 
tion, and the pleasant form in which he 
expressed this consideration was nothing 
but a hollow mask. If we want to recog- 
nize a well-bred man we must watch 
him in an emergency. Many a thick 
veneer of good breeding has cracked and 
gone to pieces in a shipwreck or a rail- 
road accident. 

There is a certain inherited instinct 
for kindliness, and for living and acting 
in good form, which proves to be per- 
fectly hollow when put to the slightest 
test, unless its possessor has made it his 
own by feeling and living in true and 
active obedience to the commandment to 
love our neighbor as ourselves. We are 
not well bred simply because our grand- 
fathers were. If we have a good inherit- 
ance to build on let us be grateful, but 

43 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

let us remember that all inherited good 
habits must be established by the strength 
of our own personal character before 
they are really ours. If we inherit low, 
common, vulgar habits of mind, and 
have the intelligence and power to recog- 
nize the fact, then the low inheritance 
will not remain ours, for we can cast it 
off and receive all good in its place. 
Every man, outside of hell, has in him 
the possibilities of a gentleman. Every 
woman, outside of hell, has in herself the 
possibilities of a lady. 

All good customs have a true reason 
for existence, and any man who has the 
fine perception which good breeding 
always gives will easily adopt the best 
customs of those with whom he is thrown, 
no matter in what part of the world it 
may be. A real love of our neighbor 
gives us a quick perception of his point 
of view, and an ability to conform to it 
in all ways that are possible and neces- 

44 



GOOD BREEDING 

sary. When we are selfishly set in our 
own ways, we carry a resistance to the 
habits of people who differ from us which 
makes it difficult to understand or to 
conform to their customs. 

If we are well bred, truly well bred, 
we are loving, thoughtful, observant, 
quick in our perception of other people's 
needs and delicate in our manner of sup- 
plying them without intrusion. If, for 
instance, we know that a man is anxious 
to hear a bit of news and cannot easily 
get it, we are quick in seeing that it 
reaches him. We never leave a letter 
unacknowledged. There are very many 
little ways of doing thoughtful things for 
others which should be, which are, abso- 
lutely necessary to a well-bred man, and it is 
good to know that our perception for the 
small and for the great needs of other people 
grows rapidly as we put it into practise. 

Kindly consideration for others, with a 
gentle tolerance for all ways in which 

45 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

they may differ from us, is the root of 
good breeding, and good manners are 
its branches, flowers, and fruit. 

If the root is firmly planted within us, 
and is carefully nourished and tended, it 
will not be long before the pleasant 
forms in which we express our kindliness 
will take care of themselves. 

Finally, let us think more deeply and 
see how clear and wonderful an example 
the Creator gives us for expressing all 
our work in pleasant forms. Think of 
the beauty of the flowers, of the color of 
the sky, of the grace in the forms and 
motions of the clouds ! We can, with the 
deepest reverence, see and feel the beauty 
of nature, and realize that the love which 
is behind that universal beauty is also — 
on the smaller, derivative, human plane, 
— at the root of all good breeding. For 
the essence of good human qualities is in 
God himself, and is given to us as we shun 
the selfish obstructions which interfere. 

46 



IV 



THE USE OF TIME 



"My dear Friend — I should have 
written to you before, but it has been 
impossible for me to find the time. I can 
give you no idea of how I am rushed 
from morning until night. When I wake 
in the morning there is a burden upon 
me as to how I am to get through the 
duties of the day. When I go to sleep 
at night I cannot cast off the weight of 
the work that I have left undone. What 
would happen to the family if I were 
taken ill, I do not know. No one else 
seems to be willing or indeed to be capable 
of taking responsibility. I have a hun- 
dred things to tell you, but cannot stop 
now — I must go to work." 

The writer of this letter could never 
47 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

visit a friend without having to "hurry 
off" because she was too busy to stay; 
and even when she was acting the part 
of hostess herself, although she tried to 
be polite, there was a constant impres- 
sion of "please go as soon as you can, 
for really I am so busy I have not time 
for visitors." The strain to be seen on 
her face was evidently chronic, and 
leisure had become an impossibility. 

The average business man in this 
country seems always to have an atmos- 
phere of "rush" about him; even when 
he is sitting down you feel that he wants 
to take out his watch, if he does not 
actually do so; many men have apparently 
lost the art of taking a real vacation. I 
remember an anecdote of a prominent 
man whose family begged him to go off 
for a rest because of his extreme fatigue, 
who asserted over and over the impos- 
sibility of leaving his business, especially 
at that time of year, because there was 

48 



THE USE OF TIME 

one customer in the habit of buying very 
largely whom he felt that no one else in 
the office could possibly satisfy. Finally 
this man became so ill that he was 
obliged to be absent from his office. 
Shortly after his recovery he met his old 
customer in the street and went up to 
him with diffuse apologies for not having 
been ready to attend to his purchase. 
The customer, having finished his busi- 
ness some days before to his entire satis- 
faction, looked a little surprised and 
said: 

"Oh! Weren't you there, Mr. Smith? 
I did not know it. I am sorry you have 
been ill." 

Mr. Smith's self-importance received a 
sharp stab, but he was philosopher enough 
to take the lesson to heart, and never 
again to exaggerate the necessity of his 
presence in his office or anywhere else. 

The strain of self-importance is greater 
than we know. Indeed it is often self- 

49 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

importance, and only that, which is the 
true cause of nervous prostration. The 
great strain of unnecessary and selfish 
responsibility is an octopus which, if it 
gets hold of a man and begins to drain 
him, cannot often be cast off without 
great suffering. 

With such over-responsible people ill- 
ness is apt to take the form of an abso- 
lutely useless sense of responsibility, and 
the conceit accompanying its petty illu- 
sions is oppressive. Doctors, who know 
and understand how purely nervous ill- 
ness always caricatures the selfish ten- 
dencies of an invalid, are sometimes able 
to get at the root of the illness in the 
character of their patient; and, although 
the patient himself is loath to believe in 
the mental diagnosis of his trouble, if 
his co-operation can be gained, the cure 
is always effective. 

It is certainly very clear that a selfish 
sense of responsibility is at the root of 

50 



THE USE OF TIME 

most of the strain and "rash" about us 
in the use of time. In the first place it 
is not the many things we have to do that 
tire us, it is the way we feel about them. 
If, when I am doing one thing, I am feel- 
ing the weight on my mind of one hundred 
other things which are before me to do, 
the one thing is not apt to be well done, 
and I make no advance toward doing the 
one hundred other things. We can really 
only do one thing at a time, and if we 
take pains to concentrate our minds upon 
doing that one thing as well as we can, 
we not only have the satisfaction of 
doing better work, but we also have the 
rest that simple concentration brings, 
and gain the flexibility of mind which 
enables us easily to change our attention 
entirely from one thing to another. Very 
few people seem to appreciate the sound 
truth and common sense of the philoso- 
phy expressed in the verse, "If thine eye 
be single, thy whole body shall be full 

51 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

of light." That means healthy concen- 
tration, for if we concentrate truly on 
obedience to divine law, all other whole- 
some concentration in our daily lives 
will follow as a matter of course. 

There is nothing more irritating and 
helpless in the use and abuse of time 
than a mind which is diffuse and full of 
a selfish sense of responsibility. Such a 
mind has little sense of proportion and 
spends an abnormally long time on one 
thing, an abnormally short time on 
another, and keeps in general disorder 
with regard to time about everything. 

If any one of my readers recognizes in 
himself this time-strain, and would like 
to follow with a will a very true remedy, 
let him, when he goes to bed at night, 
first say to himself over and over, "I 
have nothing to do with to-morrow — 
nothing whatever to do with it" At 
first his brain will rise in revolt a hun- 
dred times; he will say to himself, "How 

52 



THE USE OF TIME 

absurd to sav that, when I have so much 
to do with to-morrow that I am bowed 
to the ground with the weight of it!" 
To this he must answer promptly: "Then 
if you have so much to do, you especially 
need that your mind should be clear — 
your eye single — in order to go quietly 
and quickly from one thing to another, 
and to do all the things as well as possible 
without strain." The best way to clear 
your mind is to make a clean slate of 
your brain and go to sleep with your 
brain cleared. In the morning, if you 
cannot spare the time to lie still quietly 
after you wake, take the time while you 
are dressing to think over to vourself 
the work of the day, and get your mind 
faced toward it in an orderly way. 
Dressing is more or less automatic, and 
we can think of something else while we 
dress without actively giving our atten- 
tion to two things at once. In the even- 
ing again review your day to see where 

59 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

you have failed, before you clear your 
mind for the night by renewing your 
sense of nothing to do. During the day, 
no matter how fast you have to move 
from one thing to another, never empha- 
size your hurry by talking about it. 
Many, many times, it is necessary to 
make haste; but it is hardly ever neces- 
sary to talk about it. If we have to ask 
another person to be prompt in order 
that we may catch a train, or that we 
may ourselves be prompt in keeping an 
appointment, we can make the request 
and give the reason quietly and decidedly 
without emphasizing our hurry unneces- 
sarily. There is often more strain in 
talking about "being in a hurry" than in 
the hurry itself. 

We need to establish in our brains an 
automatic habit of dropping nervous 
resistance to all we have to do, and then 
to do what is before us with promptness 
and decision. That process will keep us 

54 



THE USE OF TIME 

clear-minded and give us a healthy sense 
of true proportion in the occupations of 
our lives, so that, even if we cannot do 
all that is before us to do, we can at least 
tell what to do and what to leave undone. 

It is perfectly possible to learn to work 
rapidly with a sense of leisure; indeed, 
if we want to work well and rapidly, the 
sense of leisure should always be in the 
background. We can prove its being 
there by the ease w T ith which w^e can 
receive an interruption; by the quiet way 
in which we meet all unexpected hap- 
penings, and by our ability to react from 
a state of great activity at once to a state 
of passivity which is pleasant and re- 
freshing. Such detachment of mind gives 
a sense of easy and strong activity, — 
as if the brain w T ere a well-oiled machine. 

How many men there are whose friends 
think with dread of their being ill, not 
only because they have so much impetus 
that they seem unable to stop, but be- 

55 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

cause they have no resources whatever 
outside of their business. The suffering 
of a man is intense when he has his one 
absorbing interest taken away from him, 
— and such reaction frequently results 
in depression or melancholia. 

Every man or woman should be able 
to react wholesomely and happily to the 
leisure of a vacation, whether it be for 
five minutes, five days, five weeks, or 
five months. If we miss the changing 
rhythm of life we also miss its quiet and 
its harmony. 

There is a kind of heavy laziness in the 
use of time which is just as perverting in 
its effect upon character as the so-called 
" hustle " or " rush." The men or women 
who are subject to such laziness are apt 
to feel satisfied with thinking that a 
thing ought to be done instead of doing 
it. Indeed they cultivate the idea that 
it is praiseworthy to think that a duty 
ought to be done, but alas! in their com- 

56 



THE USE OF TIME 

placency they often leave the duty itself 
unaccomplished. Such people are sel- 
dom, if ever, prompt. They do not 
attend to the things that require atten- 
tion, they only think about them, and, 
if you venture to remind them of a duty, 
they will tell you, sometimes with great 
impatience, that they have it on their 
minds. As if the fact that they "had it 
on their minds' ' were final and you were 
very much to blame for not considering 
it so. They are perfectly satisfied if 
they have a plausible excuse for not 
doing a thing at any particular time. 
This heavy laziness, which results in 
almost constant procrastination, is, curi- 
ously enough, just as much of a strain as 
the rush of over responsibility. It is strain 
expressed in another way. The strain that 
comes from laziness often expresses itself 
in extreme irritability and obstinacy. It is 
a painful thing both to the man who in- 
dulges it and to those about him. 

57 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

The brain of the rushing man is con- 
sumed; the brain of the lazy man is 
stagnated. The brain of the rushing 
man is too* often full of a selfish cause of 
responsibility; the brain of the lazy man 
is clogged with the love of his own com- 
fort. It is doubtful which condition 
brings most suffering in the end. 

An uncomfortable mean between the 
rusher and the procrastinator is the 
dawdler. A man or woman who takes 
two hours to do what should be done in 
half an hour is actually assisting at a 
weakening process of the brain which 
may be disastrous in its results. It is 
difficult to discover what such people do 
in the process of a simple occupation — 
as dressing, for instance — but it seems 
certain that if they realized the eventual 
possible effect on brain and nervous 
system they would leave no stone un- 
turned to bring themselves, by the use 
of their wills, to prompt, successive action. 

58 



THE USE OF TIME 

A good remedy for this is to sit down and 
think over what you have to do, naming 
the most simple details, and having said 
it over twice, without delay get up and 
do it. 

In the use of time, as in everything 
else, we need a quiet, steady equilibrium. 
We should neither exaggerate nor under- 
estimate the importance of anything we 
have to do. If we love our work better 
than ourselves, and are willing to learn 
steady obedience to the true principles 
that apply to the use of time, we shall 
find the burden of its apparent insuffi- 
ciency gradually lifted from us. The 
very limitation of time, from being a pain- 
ful hindrance, may become a helpful 
regulator and guide. 



59 



MONEY STRAIN 

Money strain comes from three things : 
from trying to get more money than we 
need; from unwillingness to part with 
money after we get it, and from trying 
to spend more money than we have. 
The first strains are downright selfish- 
ness; the third cause of strain often 
comes from not knowing how to make 
two ends meet. There may be more 
real suffering in a sincere effort to make 
both ends meet than any one can know 
who is not familiar with the people who 
are striving. 

A poor woman once said : " What shall 
I do ? — what shall I do ? I only have 
what I earn, and there is no way of get- 
ting more; the children must have their 

60 



MONEY STRAIN 

education, and they must have proper 
food; and yet I must keep strength 
enough to earn for them until they can 
earn for me." 

She was nearly broken down with the 
strain of things unpaid for and the con- 
stant complaining of her children, be- 
cause they had to go without so much 
that other children had. 

The friend to whom this woman was 
talking said: "Alice, why do you always 
have desserts at dinner? They are very 
expensive, in the long run, and not at all 
needed for nourishment." 

And the answer came at once in shocked 
surprise : 

"What, a dinner without a dessert? 
How perfectly forlorn! Would you have 
me make things any more unattractive 
for the children than they already 
are? 

"But the children are constantly fret- 
ful because of the strain that you are 

61 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

under, and if that could be relieved, 
they would surely be happier, even with- 
out desserts." 

"But desserts amount to so little, — so 
very little; I would gladly drop them if 
they amounted to anything." 

This answer came so sincerely and so 
pleasantly — without the slightest touch 
of offense at the criticism — that her 
adviser felt free to go on, and before the 
talk had ended the two friends had found 
as many as fifteen or twenty things for 
house or children that were not really 
needed. To each one the mother at 
first objected strongly, but as she will- 
ingly looked over the list with her friend, 
she admitted that her objections had no 
real worth. Finally, at the end of the 
talk, she looked as if a burden had fallen 
off her, and she exclaimed, as she rose 
to go: "I see, I see, it is simply that I 
must limit my wants to my income, and 
take the trouble to distinguish between 

62 



MONEY STRAIN 

necessities and luxuries, and I must teach 
the children to do the same thing/' 

The next time they met her face was 
full of fun. "Why," she said, "the chil- 
dren have entered right into the game, 
and we are having such a good time to- 
gether. It is surprising to see how many 
wants we can give up. Now the children 
are as much interested in finding out 
what they can do without, as they were 
fretful before because of the things thev 
were obliged to go without/' 

"I wonder. " her friend answered, "how 
it would be if they did not really have 
enough food to nourish their bodies, or 
enough clothing to keep them warm." 

"I have thought of that," said the 
little mother, "and I can see how very 
much more difficult it would be: but I do 
know this, that not straining for what 
we cannot have keeps our minds clearer 
to get what we can have. I have been 
able to earn more monev since I have 

63 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

stopped fretting because I did not have 
enough. I have been able to use my 
head better and to work my hands faster. 
It is a great relief." 

This same woman made a careful 
study of food, to discover what was most 
nourishing and least expensive, and her 
interest in helping her children to the 
best means of health was delightful. 

Those who are suffering from the 
strain of money want can be divided 
roughly into two classes: those who 
have not enough to keep themselves 
fed and warm, and those who have not 
enough prevent themselves from appear- 
ing shabby among their friends. The 
amount of money a person receives can- 
not be increased by worry, but what a 
man may get in return for his money 
is a matter which varies very much 
indeed. 

There is no use in worrying about how 
much money we have, but there is very 

64 



MONEY STRAIN 

great use in educating ourselves in the 
ways of getting the best real return for 
our money. 

The fundamental, material necessities 
of life are shelter, wholesome nourish- 
ment, warm clothing, and cleanliness, and 
after these necessities are secured, it be- 
comes desirable to have them in as con- 
venient and attractive form as possible. 

A practical knowledge of what to eat, 
and how to eat it, has more to do w r ith our 
being well nourished than the amount of 
money we spend, and by keeping his 
stomach in good order a man can double 
the value of his food. How often do we 
see people — whether beggars or million- 
aires — who do not know enough, or care 
enough, to eat what will give them their 
best health and strength. Is not the 
beggar, who spends his last cent on some 
miserably made pie, in the same class 
with the millionaire who eats such rich 
food that he utterly ruins his digestion ? 

6,5 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

A poor man can be as well or as ill fed on 
two dollars a week as a rich man on two 
thousand. 

The question of being well dressed is 
almost less a mere matter of money. 

What a great difference in her appear- 
ance the neatness of a woman's hair 
makes, or the cleanliness of a man's well- 
brushed coat. Some people have not 
the ability to dress well with any amount 
of money — unless they use other people's 
brains — either because they are natu- 
rally slovenly or because they have 
bad taste. A wrinkle, for instance, in a 
conspicuous place may absolutely spoil 
the appearance of a man's coat, and an 
unbecoming color that of a woman's 
dress. The ability to wear one's clothes 
well is not a matter of money, — neither 
is the womanly taste which selects colors 
in dress that harmonize with and en- 
hance the advantages of natural coloring 
in the eyes and hair. 

66 



MONEY STRAIN 

If we think quietly and stop worrying 
about what we are unable to buy, and 
try to separate our real needs from our 
superficial desires, — if we try to culti- 
vate the art of really satisfying our wants 
in the best way possible, no matter what 
our conditions in life, it will be surprising 
to see how much we can have, and how 
much more enjoyment we can get out of 
the things that are within our reach. 

As for the money-getting strain, that 
comes, in the long run, to be a fixed idea. 
It is money getting, to no end except to 
satisfy a man's own greed, and this is for 
something which has no real value. 

4 Why are you working so hard to get 
more money?" I once heard one man 
say to another. 

"Because I want to be rich; I want to 
be as rich as I possibly can." 

"To what end?" 

"You have so much power if you have 
money." 

67 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

"But you are using no part of your 
brain except the money-getting part, and, 
when you have all the money you want, 
if that time ever comes, the rest of your 
brain will have gone to seed, and the 
only power you will have will be to get 
more money." 

"Well, I am willing to risk it." 

And he did risk it, and every part of 
his brain except the money-getting part 
has gone pretty well to seed by this time, 
and his fixed idea for money is ruling 
him entirely. 

Debt, debt, debt, that is the worst of 
the money-spending strain. Some people 
have the habit of debt. I knew a man 
who was born with a tendency to debt. 
There are many such, but I am thinking 
of this one especially because he came 
out of it so happily. He made up his 
mind to get out of debt, but, after he had 
paid every bill he owed, he felt so un- 
natural that, in the course of a few 

68 



MONEY STRAIN 

weeks, he went directly and had some- 
thing charged. Just this account brought 
the weakness of debt so vividly to his 
mind that he saw himself as he never 
had before, and ever since he has kept 
entirely out of debt, and has never had 
anything charged that he did not have 
the money in hand to pay for. 

There are people born without any 
sense of money value, and these people 
bring the burden of the money strain 
upon their friends. It is with them like 
having no ear for music; they are quite 
happy and comfortable in spending more, 
money than they ought, or even in spend- 
ing other people's money. 

A boy whom I once knew insisted 
upon leaving school to earn money for 
his mother, who was very poor and 
struggling hard to get bread and butter 
for her children. It was really a great 
cross to the child to leave school, for he 
loved studying, but he found a place at 

69 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

three dollars a week, and, like a brave 
little boy, went to work. When he re- 
ceived his first week's wages he went and 
bought candy, flowers, and a little French 
lace collar, and brought them all home 
to his mother with delight. When she 
cried with disappointment he could not 
understand, and it was only through the 
mother's loving patience that he gradually 
gained a clearer sense of the real value 
of money, and of true balance in spending. 
It is instructive to watch the men who 
have suddenly come into large fortunes, 
are especially the men who are found in 
the western part of this country, — men 
whose fathers, and grandfathers, perhaps, 
were day laborers. So many of these men 
who become suddenly rich seem to have no 
sense of the real value of money, and they 
and their wives spend so lavishly and so 
foolishly that it is like splashing their 
money about until the money is finally 
all gone and they are poor again; 

70 



MONEY STRAIN 

We often see people who economize 
extremely in some ways, and spend 
lavishly in others; but it is quite as un- 
balanced to spend lavishly as it is to be 
close-fisted and stingy. It is quite as un- 
balanced to be narrow, and sordid, and 
falsely economical in the use of money, 
as it is to be needlessly extravagant. It 
often is a difficult matter to find the delicate 
balance of wise expenditures, but we can 
all cultivate the capacity and develop it. 

If w^e are well balanced and free from 
either one of the three strains, — the 
getting strain, the keeping strain, or the 
spending strain, — and, at the same time, 
have more money than we need for our 
rent, food, and clothing, we shall find no 
trouble in spending wisely in other ways, 
for the sake of other people as well as for 
our own interests and pleasures. 

It is money equilibrium that we want; 
and, as money is nothing whatever in it- 
self, but only represents value, we must 

71 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

see to it that all the money we get represents 
good, true service on our part, and that all 
money that we spend is really ours to spend, 
and is given in exchange for real value. 

Because money is so large a factor in 
this world's life, the good, generous well- 
balanced use of it in any man or woman 
means a good, generous, well-balanced 
character. If we are poor, let us be will- 
ing to be poor as long as it is necessary, 
and enjoy the quiet and steady effort 
to make both ends meet. Let us also 
be willing that other people should be 
rich, and not fret and strain because 
other men buy what we cannot. If they 
can afford luxuries, it is right and good 
that they should have them, if they make 
good use of them. If we cannot afford 
luxuries, it is right and good that we 
should not have them, and we may make 
good use of going without. 

Many people say that they long for 
money because they long to help others 

72 



MONEY STRAIN 

with it. That with most people is a 
subtle self-deception. A man can, with 
a true giving spirit, give more real help 
to his neighbor than mints of money 
alone could represent. Let us be sure 
that we are giving every bit we can to 
others in loving, wise kindness, then if 
we have money to give too, well and 
good. There are three economies, the 
economy of strength, the economy of 
time and the economy of money — to 
find our balance in one we must ap- 
proach it in all three, and with every 
man the proportion is different. — Each 
one must solve his individual problem. 

A man can find out his own money, 
time and strength strain, if he really 
w T ants to find it, and looks for it, and can 
recognize the selfish resistance behind it. 
It is always self, in one form or another, 
and, if we find our true balance in these 
three things, we are sure to find with it 
our equilibrium in every day living. 

73 



VI 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

"You naughty little boy, why did you 
slap your brother?" 

"He slapped me first." 

"Is that any reason why you should 
slap him?" and the mother shook her 
little son and sat him down hard in a 
chair, telling him roughly to stay there 
until she should tell him that he might 
get up. Then she went out of the room 
— annoyed and angry, dragging the other 
delinquent by the hand. 

Shortly after she had to go to the nur- 
sery on some errand, and was immediately 
accosted by the little prisoner. 

"Mother, may I get up now?" 

"No, — " she spoke more quietly, — 
"you must sit there in order to realize 

74 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

how wrong you were and how cruel to 
your little brother." 

A short pause, then — " Mother ? " 

"Yes, dear." 

"Didn't you say that because he 
slapped me that was no reason why I 
should slap him?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

"Because, when people are unkind to 
us, we ought to be especially kind to 
them." Another pause. 

"Mother?" 

"Yes, dear." 

'When I am naughty am I unkind to 
you?" 

"Yes, indeed you are." 
'Well, then, why were you not espe- 
cially kind to me? Why did you shake 
me and sit me down so hard ? And, 
mother, you seemed very angry with me." 

The mother felt a rush of angry resent- 
ment rise up in her, but there was some- 

15 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

thing better in her that would not let her 
express her anger, and she left the room 
quickly without a word. She loved her 
little son, and the little old head on his 
young shoulders had given her many 
lessons before, but never such a lesson as 
this. 

She went straight to her room, shut her 
door, and sat down in a chair to think. 
She saw clearly that she had been moved 
to punish her child from angry resent- 
ment for his naughtiness, in fact that she 
had behaved to him in exactly the same 
spirit in which he had slapped his little 
brother, only she was older and could 
put it all into the form of righteous 
punishment. If she had been less of a 
woman she might have called it righteous 
indignation and let it pass. She was too 
good and sensible a woman not to see 
clearly that she could have used the 
same decision with her son and could 
have punished him more truly if she had, 

70 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

at the same time, been full of quiet 
loving-kindness; as it was, the child was 
better, and stronger, and wiser than she, 
but she showed her greater maturity by 
recognizing and acknowledging the fact. 
She went at once and made it right with 
the boy, and she was a better mother to 
her son, and he was a better son to his 
mother, from that time on. 

The mother felt truly repentant for her 
resentment and glad to have discovered 
it, and was quietly reading to the children 
when their father came home. When the 
children had said good night and gone 
to bed, the father looked at his watch 
and said, a little testily: 

"Mary, J wish we might have dinner 
on time. It never is ready until half an 
hour after we expect it, and to-night I 
have an engagement." 

Quick as a flash up came I lie resent- 
ment — and his wife spoke before she 
thought: 

77 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

"That is a great exaggeration! I am 
trying my best to get this new cook 
broken in. You never — " Then she 
stopped short, for she recognized the 
feeling with which she had punished her 
little son in the morning. 

Her husband noticed the interruption 
and she told him the whole story, and 
confessed why she had bitten off her 
sentence. 

That evening some people came to 
make a call. They began talking about 
a book which Mary especially liked. 

One of her visitors laughed and spoke 
of it with ridicule. She opened her 
mouth to give a quick, sharp answer, 
but stopped before she had spoken a 
word. There was the same resentment. 
When the visitors had gone, Mary sat 
down in a state of shocked surprise. 

"Why, I resent everything! I resented 
the dress that woman had on; it was in 
such poor taste and so unbecoming! I 

78 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

resented it because they had been to the 
opera, and we cannot afford it! What 
a fool I must have been to carry this 
nasty feeling about with me all my life 
and not know it!" 

In the midst of her flattering reflec- 
tions her husband came in and sat down 
thoughtfully. 

"Well, Mary," he said, "I made a 
failure in my effort to put that case 
through, and when my client failed to 
comply with my plans for him, although 
he was biting off his own nose and not 
mine, I was so angry that I could not 
easily control myself; but, as I began to 
speak, I suddenly thought: 'Why, the 
man has not done me any harm, and here 
am I wanting to kill him!" His wife 
smiled, and they both smiled. 

The next day James came home and 
told his wife, with half sadness and half 
amusement : 

"I have been resenting this whole day. 
79 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

I resented it because another man got a 
case that I wanted. I resented it because 
my office boy jammed his finger. I re- 
sented it because my stenographer made 
a perfectly innocent mistake. I resented 
it when the waiter kept me waiting for 
my luncheon! Now isn't this a curious 
thing ? Do you suppose we have had the 
disease of chronic resentment all our lives 
and have not known it, and how is it we 
are making such rapid discoveries now?" 

"I have often noticed/' said Mary, 
"that when I get a hint in one direction, 
I am constantly seeing more and more." 
She did not suggest, nor even know, that 
it was because she wanted to find herself 
out, that she was doing so. 

Another woman whose son was a little 
philosopher might have ignored his remark 
entirely, or have told him that he was " a 
naughty little boy" to criticize his mother, 
and gone on with her work without giving 
her little boy's words another thought. 

80 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

It was because Mary was truly in- 
terested to find herself out that she had 
interested her husband in finding him- 
self out, and together they were making 
a steady gain in self-knowledge. Not 
that they were in the habit of morbid, 
self-combined introspection. They were 
too wholesome for that. The people 
who are really glad to find themselves 
out are always too wholesome for morbid 
introspection, and there is nothing wherein 
one can gain greater freedom than in a 
thorough finding out of one's self in this 
matter of resentment. 

Resentment is like hot, smoky fog. It 
lies low until we have gone to work prac- 
tically to clean it out, but, until then, it is 
always there, and only needs a little 
whiff of suggestion to bring it up in all 
its murkiness so that it befogs the whole 
brain. 

Some one innocently finds fault with 
us. Whiz! — phew! — up comes the re- 

81 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

sentment. In less than an instant our 
brains are hot and foggy and our nerves 
quivering. The more we deserve the 
criticism the quicker the resentment rises 
and the fiercer it is. 

Some one does or says something that 
we take as an offense to our dignity, or 
perhaps some one says something that is 
really harsh, and rude, and ill-mannered, 
— something that is even cruel and un- 
kind. Up comes our resentment, and, 
before we know it, we are so immersed 
in that hot, smoky fog that we have no 
clear judgment as to how to answer, or 
how to meet such an attack with quiet 
dignity. 

Quiet dignity and resentment cannot 
live in the same person at the same time. 

Good judgment and resentment can- 
not be alive in the same man at the 
same time. 

Between wise charity and resentment 
there is a great gulf fixed! No matter 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

how earnestly we may feel that we desire 
to serve others, — if that desire is tainted 
with the habit of resentment, we must 
form the habit of getting rid of the re- 
sentment, or we may be sure that our 
desire for use to others has no sincerity 
in it. 

Even when we have learned to nip the 
resentment in the bud whenever it ap- 
pears, we cannot on that account cease 
our vigilance. 

Resentment befogs the brain and fatigues 
the nervous system. 

One of the laws of true non-resistance 
in dealing with other men's minds is never 
to allow ourselves to grow irritable with 
our opponents. 

All philosophers know the foolishness 
of resentment — the absolute stupidity of 
it — but they do not, apparently, know so 
well the great harm there is in suppressing 
it. 

I can refuse to act, to speak, or to 
83 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

think from resentful feeling merely be- 
cause such action, speech, or thought may 
interfere with my own selfish advantage, 
— because it would put me at a dis- 
advantage with other men; or I can 
refuse to act, speak, or think from resent- 
ment, because resentment is in itself an 
evil thing which I hate, and because I 
love the quiet power for real use to 
others which is its opposite, and which 
comes by overcoming it. 

In the first case I have only pushed 
my resentment into the background with 
my self-will, and it is sure to assert itself 
some other time and poison me in one 
way or another; in the second case I 
am gradually purging myself from it 
altogether and am working toward free- 
dom by permanently clearing my brain. 

Resentment, being merely a form of 
weak excitement, can never do any good; 
but, on the contrary, does a great deal of 
harm. It keeps our brains in a chronic 

84 



CONCERNING RESENTMENT 

state of irritation; it upsets our digestion 
and makes our bodies ill; it is a frequent 
cause of dyspepsia; it interferes with our 
best work in life; it warps our characters 
and taints our souls. 

The main thing in the way of our get- 
ting rid of it is the fact that most of us 
do not want to find ourselves out. If we 
did, and would set to work in earnest, 
we would soon be surprised at the dis- 
covery of resentment in odd corners of 
our minds that we had not suspected. 
Then, if we began to form the habit of 
never allowing the feeling of resentment 
to control us, it would not be long before 
we would feel relief in brain, nerves, and 
body, and would be heartily grateful for 
the strong, wise kindliness which properly 
belongs in its place. 



85 



VII 

EXCUSES AND " BACK TALK'' 

When we were all ready and about 
to start for the matinee, some one said: 
"Where are the tickets?" Whereupon 
Jane exclaimed with characteristic vehe- 
mence, "What a terrible thing! I for- 
got to order them! 3 ' We telephoned at 
once, but the play was drawing im- 
mensely, and at that late hour there were 
no tickets to be had. Every one had 
been counting on the pleasure of the after- 
noon, and every one was disappointed. 

"Why, Jane," said her mother, "I 
asked you to speak for the tickets a 
week ago." 

"I know it, mother; but I have been 
so busy all the week that I have lost my 
head about everything." 

86 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

"You were not busy on Monday 
afternoon, dear, for I saw you reading 
a novel." 

"Yes, but then you went out; and, 
just after you left, I remembered the 
tickets for the theater, but did not know 
in what part of the house you wanted to 
sit. 

"But on Tuesday," said her mother, 

"I was in the house all day, and you were 

too; you might have asked me at any time." 

4 Well, I did go to the telephone once, 

but the line was busy." 

And so the talk went on, and Jane 
made one random response after another; 
saving anything — anything rather than 
what would have been a good direct 
acknowledgment of a dead failure to do 
what had been given her to do, and 
what she had promised to attend to. 

The circuitous line of reasoning that 
some people — indeed, at times, most 
people — will adopt, rather than face 

87 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

the fact that they are entirely in the 
wrong, is curiously stupid. If I am 
wrong let me own up squarely and 
clearly that I am wrong; then I can do 
all in my power to make it right without 
being befogged by my unwillingness to 
see myself as I really am. If I am 
wrong and will not own up to it, there 
are two causes of abnormal strain: first, 
the wrong itself; and, secondly, the series 
of lies which I must tell myself and 
other people in order to keep myself in 
the false persuasion. If I am in the 
wrong, and acknowledge it in a clear 
and clean-cut spirit, then I have clear 
light by which to mend the wrong; and, 
generally, both the mistake and the 
acknowledgment are done within a brief 
space of time, and we find ourselves 
moving on to something better; whereas, 
without the acknowledgment, we may 
drag a dead weight of sham along with 
us for an indefinite length of time. 

88 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

If we have a spot on our face, we must 
look in the glass to see where it is, in 
order to wash it off. If we have a bad 
habit which cannot be reflected in the 
glass, and some friend will kindly serve 
as a mirror and show us by imitation 
just what the habit is, we may thus be- 
come clearly conscious of it; and if, at 
the same time, we can find the proper 
remedy, there will be nothing to prevent 
our working steadily until we have gained 
our freedom. We must first become so 
thoroughly conscious of a nervous habit 
as to be ourselves annoyed by it, in order 
to get free. It is a very difficult matter 
to bring ourselves into a state of mind 
in which we are fully willing to become 
entirely conscious of our faults; it is so 
difficult that people often prefer to retain 
their extreme and selfish peculiarities, 
because their habits are already formed, 
and they feel at home in them themselves, 
although all those about them may suffer. 

89 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

I once knew a woman who articulated 
so badly that no one could understand 
her without great difficulty. She learned 
to articulate perfectly; but, after this, 
her correct articulation seemed to her so 
unnatural and uncomfortable that she 
preferred to relapse into the habit of con- 
fused speech rather than to speak slowly 
and plainly, and so save her friends the 
strain of a painful effort to understand 
her. Her excuse was that the slow, dis- 
tinct speech made her conspicuous to 
other people, and she could not bear to 
draw attention to herself; when in reality 
it only made her conspicuous to herself. 
In many cases people have lived in ab- 
normal habits so long that normal ways 
appear to them abnormal; and then, if 
even a slight attempt is made to help 
them to understand themselves, there 
comes excuse upon excuse, and argu- 
ment upon argument, to prove the im- 
possibility or futility of any change. 

90 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

There are some, women especially, 
who cannot be told of very grievous 
faults — because it makes them ill. That 
is their excuse for not seeing and recog- 
nizing their own selfishness. Of course, 
they do not put it to themselves thus 
baldly. They say: "If you are going to 
think such things of me, I cannot bear 
it — it is too terrible." They accuse 
you of being unfeeling and cruel — and 
sometimes make you believe that you 
are so; and you go away with a " whipped- 
puppy" feeling until you have been out 
of their atmosphere long enough to see 
the truth of the matter, which is that 
your accuser has been attacking you to 
hide her own selfishness. She has made 
the excuse that she cannot bear your 
criticism because it is too terrible for her 
to bear. The question as to whether 
your criticism is correct or not she 
has never considered. 

I once knew a man who complained 
91 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

bitterly that his mother kept him in 
bondage through her own imperious love 
of possession. He could not move with- 
out being dogged by her, and he had no 
freedom of life whatever. When I asked 
him why he did not try, kindly and 
quietly, to show her the truth about her- 
self, he said: "I have tried to, but it 
made her so ill that at one time she 
thought she was going to die, and told 
me so." The man, of course, was weak 
to allow himself to remain in such 
bondage; and yet, when a relative who is 
very near and dear to you tells you that 
it will kill her if you try to show her that 
she is in any way at fault, it seems like 
useless cruelty to insist upon reiterating 
the truth while you are being accused of 
causing intense suffering, and perhaps 
committing murder. 

It never does any good to argue with 
one who has put a parapet of suffering in 
front of herself and is hiding behind it. 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

Such an attempt will only provoke "back 
talk," and even an habitually clear- 
minded person finds it most difficult to 
keep out of a human fog when he is once 
launched into a volley of "back talk." 
The only way is to live quietly what you 
know to be right, and say as little as 
possible. 

When you are in a position where you 
must hear excuses, answer them with 
questions, and not with accusation or 
assertion. Never accuse another if you 
can help him to accuse himself rightfully. 

"Do you really mean that I cannot 
tell you what I think about this because 
you cannot bear to feel that I think you 
may have made a mistake in the matter ?" 

"Yes, I do." 
'Then we cannot discuss it at all?" 

"No, we cannot — I cannot bear it." 
'Very well; if we can not, then we will 
not." 

And the whole matter, so far as talking 
93 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

goes, stops there; you leave your friend 
— or you turn the conversation to any- 
thing that may be light or interesting. 

The result of such a series of questions 
and answers will often appear later. The 
absurdity of the excuses brought out by 
your quiet questions will ultimately be- 
come apparent, and acknowledgment 
will follow later and give you an oppor- 
tunity for a quiet talk which you could 
not have had before. Whereas, if instead 
of the questions you make bald assertions 
or accusations, they will be resented, and 
time will be spent in nursing resentment, 
instead of in discovering the emptiness, of 
" suffering" excuses. 

One thing is an absolute necessity, if 
you want to break through the obstruc- 
tion of a false excuse, and that is quiet, 
kindly attention. If you cannot put your 
questions kindly, you had better not put 
them at all. 

This quiet attention to the excuses of 
94 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

other people is a very "eye-opener" to us 
as regards our habit of excusing ourselves. 
"He makes me so angry that I cannot 
talk with him!" Such common excuses 
for rudeness or injustice rise up and 
strike us in the face; and, for the first 
time, we recognize how stupidly vapid 
they are. 

It may never before have occurred to 
us that we should learn not to allow our 
anger or irritability to be aroused; that 
we should bring ourselves to the state of 
quiet willingness in which it would be 
out of the question for anger or irrita- 
bility to possess us. No matter how un- 
just or disagreeable a person may be, as 
far as I am concerned it is only my own 
fault if I am angered or irritated by him. 
Although we may often excuse other 
people because they do not see or under- 
stand, it would seem to be a good uni- 
versal rule that we should never excuse 
ourselves. 

95 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

We all have our own special tempta- 
tions to excuse: "I cannot bear to be 
irritated.' 5 "No one ever helped me in 
that way. If you want to do me any 
good you must go to work some other 
way/' 

"I suppose I ought to do better, but I 
have not a strong enough character — I 
have not got there yet." 

Are you finding your way there? 

"Well, I do not know how it is, but 
somehow I never can be on time, and I 
never can be orderly — I am not made 

SO. 

" Where did you get the idea that you 
must stay as you were made?" 

Then again — 

"It is my temperament." Do you not 
know that the perversions of a tempera- 
ment are not the temperament itself? 
There never was a temperament that 
had not its good as well as its evil pos- 
sibilities. The truth is that we inherit 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

our temperament with its natural per- 
versions, and it is our business in life 
to shake off the perversions, in order 
that we may find the veritable tempera- 
ment itself, and that it may carry us on 
truly to the best work that such a tem- 
perament can accomplish. If all who have 
excused themselves for selfishness and evil 
because of the " artistic temperament" 
had recognized that they were really ex- 
cusing the perversions of their tempera- 
ment, and not the temperament itself, 
much needless pain and sorrow might 
have been avoided. When a man ex- 
cuses himself for wrong-doing with a 
pretense which has absolutely no real 
foundation, there immediately comes up 
in his mind a line of argument the object 
of which is to persuade himself that he is 
right. The stupidity of the argument 
will often irritate the person with whom 
he may be talking, and there will follow 

a course of "back talk" which is the 

97 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

logical development of irrational ex- 
cuses, and very often ends in childish 
and unkind nonsense. Back and forth 
— back and forth — how many times we 
have heard it! How many times we have 
done it ourselves without thinking! 

It reminds one of the story of the two 
negroes who were fighting. The most 
voluble one was pouring out invectives 
upon the other, and when at last he 
stopped for want of breath, the other, too 
full of wrath to say all that he would like 
to say, stammered forth, "All dose tings 
dat you say I am, you is!" 

In such useless "back talk" we are 
really no better than the two darkies. In 
our hearts we are really calling each 
other ugly names all the time, no matter 
how gracefully our sentences may be 
framed. The only safe procedure is to 
stop whenever we feel the beginning of 
antagonism in an argument. Stop! — no 
matter how unjust your opponent may 

98 



EXCUSES AND BACK TALK 

seem, or may really be. If we feel our- 
selves growing irritable, we must stop. 
If we can drop our antagonism while we 
are talking, well and good; but it is not 
safe to trust oneself to do that until one 
has had good practise in stopping off 
short. If the other man is antagonistic, 
his very antagonism will serve to goad us 
on; but it is possible, with perfect cour- 
tesy, to explain that we feel antagonistic, 
and that, as we never talk sense when 
we feel in that way, we ask to be per- 
mitted to wait until we have quieted 
down. Then follows the real and valu- 
able work in ourselves: to clear up the 
antagonism — to shun it, and yield out 
of it with such a force of will and quiet 
prayer, that, whenever it shows itself 
again, it will find no soil to lodge in. 

"Back talk" is not only cheap and 
useless, it is destructive and dangerous, 
and the tendency behind it must be en- 
tirely uprooted before we can feel that 

99 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

the habit is conquered. We must be in 
the process of giving up the desire for 
our own way before we can be liberated 
from the slavery of "back talk" and be- 
come secure in our inner quietness and 
freedom; and the first result of such 
freedom will be a blessed unwillingness 
to excuse ourselves for anything, and a 
habit of quiet, respectful attention to 
what any other man may say. 

Excuses generate "back talk/' and ex- 
cuses and "back talk" together cut off 
all real human communication. Let us 
be rid of both, and gain the inestimable 
power and joy of open communication 
with our fellow men. 



100 



VIII 

PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS — HOW TO 
DEAL WITH IT 

The first essential toward dealing truly 
with persona] sensitiveness, in ourselves 

and in others, is a certain knowledge and 

appreciation of the fact that human sen- 
sitiveness is a great gift, and the man or 
woman who has it should be heartily 
grateful. 

"If only Jane were not so sensitive 
she would get through life mucfa better, 

-lie would be far happier and would 
make others about her happier, -what 
a pity that her feelings arc so easily 
hurt." 

That is quite true; if Jane were not so 
sensitive she would get through life more 
comfortably and would give less dis- 

10] 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

turbance to those about her- The more 
stupid and phlegmatic a woman is the 
more comfortable she is, and the less she 
is apt to bring her neighbor any positive 
annoyance. As we go on down the 
scale we find that we can make the same 
assertion with regard to a good solid 
comfortable pig. He does not suffer, 
he stays quietly in his sty, and feeds, and 
so far from annoying any one else he 
makes very good pork. To find the real 
quality of anything, there is nothing that 
is so convincing as following it out to its 
extreme logical conclusion, — or follow- 
ing to its extreme logical conclusion the 
effect that would result if man were to 
try to do without it, absolutely without 
it. This is true in many more cases 
than the subject we have to deal with 
here, — but our work now is with sen- 
sitiveness alone. 

The more delicate a musical instru- 
ment is the more quickly it responds to 

102 



PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS 

the touch of the musician, — and the 
more it is valued. No musician would 
think of preferring a banjo to a violin. 
It stands to reason that the more delicate 
and sensitive anything is the more re- 
sponsive it is to its own environment and 
the more perfectly it can be developed. 
Certainly it is clear that this must be 
true of human nature. The more truly 
sensitive a man is the more quickly re- 
sponsive he is to the men about him, 
and the more thoroughly he can be 
developed to his best use. The more 
sensitive an ear is to music the better 
the musician. The more sensitive an 
eye is to color and form, the better the 
artist. We know that to be a fact with 
all the senses, and why is it not equally 
a fact with the mind and disposition of 
every man. And so it is — the more 
sensitive a man is, the greater his pos- 
sibilities. He can detect what is discord- 
ant and use his will to avoid it, he can 

103 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

yield to what is harmonious and so de- 
velop positively to his best power and 
use. 

Then what is the matter with personal 
sensitiveness? Why are there so many 
personally sensitive people who seem 
weak and ineffective? Personal sensi- 
tiveness is the perversion of a good 
thing. Indeed, it is not only the perver- 
sion of a good thing, but as it is allowed 
to have its way with a man it so far 
possesses him, to make his gift of sensi- 
tiveness not only useless but a disin- 
tegrating weakness. If those who suffer 
from personal sensitiveness knew its de- 
structive power they would leave no stone 
unturned to be free from it. The sensi- 
tiveness, however, without its petty per- 
sonal quality, is so powerful for good that 
we should leave no stone unturned to gain 
our free and full use of such a gift. 

I would be very glad if in this article 
I could give so practical a receipt for the 

104 



PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS 

cure of personal sensitiveness that my 
readers who need the cure, and are will- 
ing to take the remedy, might do so 
regularly until they feel the certain relief 
of its result. 

First, let me repeat, be grateful that 
you are sensitive, you cannot spare one 
touch of it. Secondly, be more in- 
terested in the effort to get free from 
your personal sensitiveness than you 
are in the fact that your feelings are 
hurt, and in whatever it may be that has 
hurt them. Maria say-. "Oh! I wish I 
could get over this morbid sensitiveness 
— it is horrible. I am sure no one knows 
how I suffer from it"; and then the very 
first time any one snubs her, consciously 
or unconsciously, down she is again in 
the slough of it. If vou suggest to her 

C «/ DO 

that now is the time to begin to get over 

it, she is indignant and tells you that 

"you would not like it yourself if you 

were treated with such rudeness." 

105 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

James never comes into a room with- 
out watching to see if every one in the 
room will show him the proper respect. 
Susan sits at table and contracts so that 
you can seem to see her shrivel, because 
her neighbor helps himself and forgets 
to pass the butter to her. Sometimes it 
seems almost as if James and Susan and 
Maria and Jane were disappointed if 
they were not snubbed, — they are so 
busy seeking snubs that they jump at 
imaginary ones; the most innocent re- 
marks are taken personally and the raw 
and sensitive ego feels scratched. 

Yet Jane and Susan and Maria and 
James all suffer from their sensitiveness 
and are often conscious that it is abso- 
lute and unnecessary bondage. They are, 
however, more interested in the fact 
that their feelings are hurt than they are 
in gaining their release. 

Reader — if you have to suffer that 

torture of personal sensitiveness, look it 

106 



PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS 

squarely in the face and see if in every 
case where it is roused you do not find 
yourself more interested in your own 
state than in trying to get rid of it. 
Watch the people about you and see how 
much more interested they are in their 
own suffering, and in the way other people 
have caused them to suffer, than in find- 
ing their freedom from both cause and 
effect. 

There is no abnormal state of mind, 
habitual or otherwise, that will not have 
all the wind taken out of its sails if we 
meet it with a true and positive remedy 
from our own wills. The trouble is 
that we are negative and our personal 
sensitiveness is positive. We negatively 
try to overcome it; — but our real in- 
terest is not in that work — if it were so, 
and persistently so, it would be astonish- 
ing to see how quickly we would become 
positive and put to rout all feelings that 
are only destruction to our own life. 

107 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

James goes off and forgets Maria just 
at a time when he should have especially 
remembered her. " James — James for 
whom I have worked and suffered, and 
whom I never was known to forget under 
any circumstances whatever!" 

"Now look here, Maria, which is the 
more to be pitied in this case, you 
who never forget and so have the privi- 
lege of being steadily useful to your 
neighbor, — or James whose use is inter- 
mittent because of his careless forget- 
fulness?" 

"Why, James — of course." 

"Then why do you pity yourself and 
not feel sorry at all for James ? " 

"Because James hurt my feelings by 
forgetting me." 

"If you refused to have your feelings 
hurt and put your mind quickly on to 
what you could do to help James to be 
more thoughtful, wouldn't you have made 
much better use of your energy than by 

108 



PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS 

consuming it in suffering because James 
had apparently neglected you ? Or, better 
still, suppose you had thought that James 
might have some possible excuse; that 
he had not established the habit of 
thoughtfulness in detail; that he was 
preoccupied with troubles of his own. 
Finding an explanation for his behavior 
would have enabled you to understand 
him enough to prove a much better 
friend to him than you are when you sit 
and mourn over his neglect/' 

" Yes — ves — ves," Maria says, " I 
know all that to be true, but I cannot 
stop to think of that when my feelings 
are hurt, I simply suffer and that is all 
there is to it. I should be glad enough 
to do the other way, to forget mvself 
and help James, but I might as well try 
to eat my dinner with the jumping tooth- 
ache." 

"Now, Maria, do vou reallv think vou 
would be glad enough to throw off this 

108 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

personal sensitiveness, do you believe that 
you are really interested in the effort to 
throw it off?" 

"Yes, I am, I know I am. I would 
give anything to be free from it." 

"Well, then, give your attention — 
your undivided attention — and listen; 
and I will teach you how, with a jump- 
ing tooth-ache, to eat your dinner with 
the other side of your mouth." 

When your feelings are hurt do not 
act, speak, or think from the painful 
sensation — but go on doing what your 
mind has recognized to be wise at times 
when you were free from wounded feel- 
ing. In the first place, talk to your own 
brain. You must have recognized the 
fact that hurt feelings are — in most 
cases — hurt selfishness. Tell yourself 
that you are hurt because you have not 
received the proper attention, that it is 
only your love of admiration which is 
hurt. 

110 



PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS 

Of course the hurt feelings will make 
all sorts of answers w T hich would appear 
reasonable to absolute selfishness, but 
these answers you are not to listen to in 
the very least. Give all your attention 
to getting at the root, the very innermost 
cause of why your feelings are hurt, look 
the selfish cause squarely in the face and 
refuse to have anything to do with it. 
Start out in the day hoping that every 
one you meet will try to hurt your feel- 
ings, in order that you may have the 
practise of ignoring the pain. Every 
time your feelings are hurt turn the ex- 
perience into practise toward getting free 
from personal sensitiveness. You will not 
grow callous by working in that way, 
you will grow T more alive and more in- 
telligently sensitive, and you will gain the 
free, happy use of your own sensitiveness. 
It never works to divert ourselves — to 
put our attention on to something else, 
we are only diverted then from an ab- 

111 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

normally sensitive place which grows 
more sensitive and more ready to be hurt 
the next time. It is only by finding the 
selfish cause, calling it by its right name 
and refusing to be influenced by it, that 
we gain our own healthy sensitiveness. 
When we are in the process of gaining 
our freedom the sensitive pain will re- 
main for a long while after we have 
begun to ignore it, — and sometimes it 
will come so suddenly and with such a 
sharp twinge that it seems as if we never 
would or never could throw it off com- 
pletely. Indeed, we never do throw it 
off ourselves, but as we use our wills 
positively to look and act in the direction 
of freedom, the personal habit disappears. 
All we know is that we used to be per- 
sonally sensitive and we began with a 
hard conscious fight against it, by and by 
the fight seemed to get subconscious, and 
one day we suddenly awoke and found 
it gone. It may surprise us very much 

112 



PERSONAL SENSITIVENESS 

to find that it has disappeared. Even 
then we must not be over-confident, it 
may have another try at us. Personal 
sensitiveness is a subtle thing; it takes all 
sorts of minor forms, and it requires 
long patience to root it out entirely. 

In dealing with it in others, we must 
be gentle and yielding, but clear, positive, 
and wholesome. It never helps another 
to laugh at him for his sensitiveness, or 
to try to cure him by repeated snubs. 

If through repeated snubs a sensitive 
man grows callous, it is a callousness 
that only tends toward death, — let us 
remember that. But when a sensitive 
temperament is freed from its personal 
bias, there is the clear human sensitive- 
ness ready for use. We see the snubs 
quite as quickly, sometimes more quickly, 
but we do not feel them, except for the 
other people, and that in a way to serve 
and not hinder. 

There is nothing more useful in help- 
113 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

ing us to truly understand all phases of 
human nature than the sensitiveness which 
is left free after the personal warp has 
been removed from it. When the vari- 
ous forms of selfishness in us are 
positive to our negative attitude, then 
our progress is slow and heavy and dull. 
When our temptations become the nega- 
tive to our positive attitude, then we 
have all heaven working with us, and 
hell under our feet. Everything depends 
upon the true and positive direction of 
our interest. 



114 



IX 



SELFISH SUFFERING 



"Did you do her any good?" 

"No; she was so busy suffering that she 
would not listen, either to reason or to me." 

"You cruel man! how can you speak 
so heartlessly, when she had such terrible 
things to meet from all that disappoint- 
ment, and then the rude treatment from 
those horrid people. No wonder it has 
quite broken her down. You certainly 
never have had great difficulties your- 
self, or—" 

The speaker stopped here with a sud- 
den sense that she was losing her argu- 
ment, and the man to whom she was 
speaking turned his back and looked 
out of the window with a low, uncon- 
scious whistle. 

115 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

It so happened that he had lost both 
father and mother suddenly, and whereas 
he had been brought up to believe him- 
self rich had unexpectedly found him- 
self with no money at all. Had been 
obliged to leave college to earn his bread 
and butter — had met with one reverse 
after another in the way of thoughtless 
unkindness from other people, and 
through it all had succeeded finally in 
working his way through college and 
was just about established in a moder- 
ately good business. 

The girl who spoke to him knew all 
that, hence the sudden interruption, when 
she found herself spontaneously fibbing 
with regard to his opportunities for 
suffering. 

Suddenly the man turned upon her, 
and with a quick, bright look in his 
face, he said : " Maggie — Maggie — don't 
you see that if you stop to dwell on your 
suffering you never get anywhere ? What 

116 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

I wanted to say to that woman this 
morning, when she looked up at me with 
a face all drawn in with pain and self- 
pity, was: 'You stupid little goose. 
Don't you know that all your pain is 
because you are not getting your own 
way.' 

"What do you mean?" interrupted 
Maggie, with more indignation. "Is it 
wanting your own way to work night and 
day with all your might to pass an ex- 
amination which will enable you to help 
support a family of small brothers and 
sisters ? Is it selfishness to suffer when, 
through no real fault of yours, you have 
failed?" 

'Why, Maggie, she wanted to pass her 
examination, didn't she?" 

'Wanted to, why, of course she did." 

'Well, was not that wanting her own 
way?" 

' That may be — but it was a very good 
way, and a very unselfish way." 

117 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

"I did not say it was not a good way, 
or it was not an unselfish way; what I 
said was her own way — can you deny 
that?" 

"No — of course I cannot." 

"Well, then, she is crying because she 
wants her own way and did not get it, 
isn't she?" 

'Yes," doggedly, "I suppose she is; 
but who could help it?" 

''Well, now, my friend, will you tell 
me this — is she gaining anything by her 
suffering?" 

"No." 

"Is she losing nervous energy, health, 
strength, sleep, nourishment — for she 
will not eat and says she cannot sleep — 
is she losing all these?" 

'Yes, yes, yes, she is — what are you 
driving at now?" 

"Why, at this — if she really wanted 
unselfishly, with all her heart, to earn 
the support and education of those small 

118 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

brothers of hers, she would not waste a 
moment indulging in the luxury of suf- 
fering — she would take all her energy 
to look about her and see what next to 
do." 

"Why didn't you tell her that ?" 
"I did tell her in words not as plainly 
as these words, I have said to you, for 
I was feeling my way, and she jumped 
at what she called my crude misunder- 
standing of her. If I had told her that 
she was in torture because she wanted 
her own way, I could see that I might 
have thrown her into a collapse, or at 
least made it impossible to do any 
friendly kindness for her in the future. 
We have got to let her cry it out, and then 
perhaps she will listen to reason — espe- 
cially if we first offer her an opportunity 
to get a new examination under better 
conditions. I find there is a chance of 
that — and while she is having her little 
spree, I will look it up farther/' 

119 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

" Spree — spree, Tom, aren't you 
ashamed of yourself?" 

"Which is the most heartless, Maggie, 
doing for another without talking, or 
talking without doing?" 

"Oh, well, well, I suppose talking 
without doing is, but I should think you 
might have expressed your sympathy in 
both words and deeds." 

"I am simply telling you the truth, 
child, and I know my tone has not been 
unkind — you know it too. It is only 
my words that have annoyed you. This 
suffering of hers is a regular spree. If 
you probe her you will find she is not 
suffering first because of the failure in 
examination — at the root of it all is 
rebellion and chagrin because she feels 
the people about her do not appreciate 
her, do not like her, do not give her the 
admiration she has always been used to. 
They have treated her badly — abomi- 
nably; and she is suffering because she 

120 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

wanted them to come and admire her and 
help her along. There again she is 
suffering because she wants her own 
way, and it is not an apparently unselfish 
way this time, but downright love of 
admiration. I tell you, Mag, more than 
one half of the suffering in this w r orld is 
because people want their own way, and 
they cry like babies because they do not 
get it — I know it for I have proved it. 
Look at your little two-year-older. When 
he sees the sugar, doesn't he cry and 
scream and reach out his arms and grab 
with his fingers, and then when you 
take it away and say, 'No, no, the sugar 
is not good for baby/ doesn't he scream 
louder, a really mad scream too ? And his 
baby face is all knotted up just as Louise 
Powers' face was this afternoon — she 
would not even listen to see if I had 
anything helpful to say. I tell you, Mag, 
she was too busy suffering to attend to 
any one or anything else. She is a self- 

121 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

ish pig, and she is thoroughly convinced 
that she is a very unselfish martyr. Now 
I will go and see what I can do for her." 
And he went without another word, 
and Maggie just sat and thought; her 
brain seemed to go over and over the talk 
almost automatically. An habitual fog 
in her was lifting, and she was gradually 
awed and surprised by the new point of 
view. Once she exclaimed: "But of 
course we all want things for ourselves, 
of course that is why we suffer" — then 
with a quick flash of new light: "But the 
suffering does not help us to get them" 
— and later on: "It is, it is, it is an 
indulgence — suffering is an indulgence, 
anyway much of it is, and what suffering 
we cannot help brings us strength in the 
way we bear it. Dear, dear me, Louise 
Powers is a selfish pig, she is crying be- 
cause she cannot have the sugar — I'll 
go tell her so, she will hear me surely, it 
is all so clear — how glad she will be, 

122 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

and she'll have a lot more strength to 
get on her feet again." Maggie hurried 
as quickly as possible to her friend's 
house — she was full of her new fund 
of common sense, and eager to tell it, 
but alas ! alas ! the answer was : 

" Maggie, how can you talk to me like 
that when I am suffering so?" 

" But, Louise, don't you see ? ^Yake up ; 
it could all be different if you would see." 

"No, I do not see and I will not listen 
to you when you are so terribly unsym- 
pathetic — it is not like you, Maggie. 
Oh! I am so homesick," and she buried 
her face in the pillows and went on with 
her own little "spree." 

Poor Maggie got a new understanding 
of humanity that day both good and bad. 
Perhaps the same light came to her 
friend later. I do not know. 

The tendency is to take it for granted 
that this selfish suffering is peculiar to 
women, and that many more women go 

123 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

on suffering sprees than men. I doubt 
if it is so. It is only that men express 
their suffering in irritability and brutality. 

I knew a man whose wife was very 
ill, and while he was suffering from 
anxiety he was so ugly to every one who 
approached him that he seemed almost 
insane. He was wanting his own way 
with a vengeance, and his own way was 
to have his wife get well, but he wanted 
her to get well for his own selfish com- 
fort and because he had for her a very 
strong love of possession; she was his 
wife, and he did not want her taken 
away from him; hence the intense suf- 
fering which, being full of selfishness, 
expressed itself in careless neglect of 
others and in great irritability. 

"How can you expect me to be pleasant 

with failure hanging over me, and no 

way to turn for the next dollar ? " snapped 

out a husband one day to his anxious 

wife. 

124 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

"James, James, how can you make 
me suffer so?" wailed the poor woman. 

He and she w T ere both on their own 
pet suffering spree. Downright selfish 
suffering. He was pitying himself with 
all his might and main. She was pitying 
herself with all her might and main, and 
there they w T ere, with strained nerves, 
acting and reacting upon each other. 
Each thinking the other thoroughly sel- 
fish and both blind to their own selfish- 
ness. 

If James had stopped suffering to give 
a little thought to Maria, he would have 
gained more quiet and probably clearer 
light to solve his financial troubles. If 
Maria had given more thought to help- 
ing her husband in his difficulties, she 
would have ceased her own suffering 
and perhaps been really useful to him. 
Who knows, maybe she might have 
proved a better financial head than his, 
if she had put her mind to it. She might 

125 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

merely have transferred her suffering for 
herself to suffering for him, in which 
case it would possibly have made his lot 
even harder. 

"I can bear all this for myself, but I 
cannot bear to have so and so suffer." 
That is a common exclamation and with 
it often comes a complacent sense of 
"how good I am, I do not think of my- 
self, I think and suffer for others"; but, 
my friend, we must not want our own 
way for others any more than for our- 
selves. We must not set a higher stand- 
ard for ourselves than for others. 

We are of no use to others when we 
suffer selfishly for them, often such pain 
disables us for use. When we find our- 
selves suffering for another, the first 
thing to do is to turn our attention to 
what we can do for him, and do it. If 
we can do nothing, then let us keep our 
minds and bodies in good condition in 
order to be ready when there is anything 

126 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

that we can do. Often the best service 
we can give to others is to get well and 
strong in mind and body ourselves. 

That is a difficult thing to remember, 
and a very difficult thing to act upon. 
The trouble is, we like to feel our impor- 
tance to others, — so we suffer for them, 
or do for them, or wear ourselves out for 
them, and then feel unselfish. When we 
desire to do for others merely for the 
sake of others, and not at all because we 
want them to be this, that, or the other, 
we throw off all selfish responsibility, 
we gain our freedom from selfish suffer- 
ing and stand mentally and physically 
well equipped for real service. 

There is one very prevalent form of 
selfish suffering which might be most 
wholesomely decreased, and I speak of 
it w T ith all respect, when I say it is the 
suffering of being in love. She suffers 
because she loves him, and he does not 
love her. No persuasion can move her 

137 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

to stop the suffering, and she makes her- 
self and every one about her miserable 
and she firmly expects to do so the rest 
of her life. Or, sometimes, she thinks 
she will not trouble others with her pain 
or she is too proud to let others know of 
it. Then she represses it, but indulges 
in it quite as fully and sometimes closes 
herself up for life and shrivels. If only 
such sufferers could be taught that they 
must want nothing for themselves. They 
want the man they think they are in love 
with for themselves. They are thor- 
oughly imbued with the love of posses- 
sion, and the love is not qualified. 

They are so set upon wanting for 
themselves that they have no mind left 
to look quietly and see if they have not 
made a mistake here in thinking them- 
selves in love. They have no mind left 
to recognize the possible fact that they 
may be in love with love and not in love 
with any one man at all. And what is 

128 



SELFISH SUFFERING 

most important, they have not the clear 
mind to recognize and know that mar- 
riage love must be mutual to exist at all, 
and however a man or woman may feel 
that he loves another, if the other never 
responds there is sure to be a mistake 
and it is merely love of possession that 
moves the lover, and the sooner such 
love is cast off the sooner we find the 
power of loving truly. 

I might be easily answered: "Yes, 
we know perfectly well that all this suf- 
fering is simply wanting for ourselves, 
but how are we to stop wanting?" The 
answer to that is, behind our natural 
selfish wants we have our own free wills. 

Joined to the intelligence in us which 
recognizes the fact that we are suffering 
because we want our own way is the 
will to refuse to be ruled by our selfish 
desires. As we refuse to think, speak, 
or act from any idea which is suggested 
by our selfish suffering, gradually the 

129 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

suffering wears off and we come into 
clear light, and although we may not be 
buoyantly happy, we are quietly and 
progressively contented. It often takes 
a long time to accomplish this freedom, 
but in so far as we refuse to live from the 
suffering, that is, if we willingly submit 
to it without bitterness, and do the use- 
ful work that lies before us, we are sure 
to find freedom and new strength al- 
though we may often need to exercise 
great patience in the process. 



130 



X 



THE SELFISHNESS OF BEING GOOD 

We can be good because we want to 
appear good to others, we can be good 
because we want to appear good to our- 
selves, or, we can really be good. 

If we want a test as to whether the 
quality of our good works is real or 
spurious, all we have to do is to give our 
attention to the subject and be willing 
to find ourselves out. 

Jane does something that she feels to 
be just what James wants. She takes 
great pains about it, and not only incon- 
veniences herself very much to have 
everything as it should be to surprise and 
please James, but really gets very tired 
in the process. Some one exclaims : " How 
unselfish you are, you never think of 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

yourself; you are always living for others, 
it seems dreadful to see you so tired 
Jane;' 5 and Jane answers, 'That is 
nothing, nothing when I am able to sur- 
prise and please James." "How lovely" 
the neighbor says, and goes away think- 
ing Jane a remarkable woman, and Jane 
all unconsciously works on in happy 
complacency, with the honest unexpressed 
belief that she is lovely, thoughtful, and 
unselfish. 

Indeed, she has the pose of a kind 
of twentieth century saint. But, — the 
surprise is finished, the work is ac- 
complished and James is told all that has 
been done for him and presented with 
the results. It so happens that the whole 
thing is just what James did not want. 
If Jane had given more attention to 
James and less to her own kindnesses, 
she might have known that it would be 
so. Instead of being surprised and pleased 
James is surprised and pained; and, on 

132 



SELFISHNESS 

the impulse of the moment, takes no 
trouble to hide his annoyance, but ex- 
presses it emphatically. What is the 
effect upon Jane? All her work, all her 
fatigue, all her kind, loving attention has 
come to nothing, to worse than nothing, 
for James, instead of being happy is 
angry. Jane gets angry too, and bursts 
into floods of tears, goes to her room, 
shuts her door, and is not seen for the 
rest of the day. 

Oh, Jane, Jane, were you trying to 
please yourself or to please James? If 
James had been happy over your work, 
would your happiness have been for him, 
or because it gave you pleasure to do a 
good thing, and be thought well of in 
consequence ? 

If you had been really disappointed 
for James's sake, would you have cried 
with anger and shut yourself away from 
him ? Why do you not see that, if it is 
James you want to please and not your- 

133 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

self, you will go to work at once to make 
things over or take them to pieces alto- 
gether, not shut yourself up and cry with 
indignation. 

Jane could not have been as clear- 
sighted as this, however, because she was 
blind in the beginning; she was all im- 
mersed in the selfishness of being good 
and kind and thoughtful for others, and 
when her selfish desire for James's pleas- 
ure was brought up short, of course, the 
natural reaction was anger at James for 
not appreciating her unselfishness, and 
then suffering which came from her self- 
pity. 

If any one could have said, " Jane, look 
up — this is a test, you thought you were 
so good and unselfish and this is to show 
you that you are not so at all, — of course 
it was natural that you should have been 
disappointed, but, if you had been dis- 
appointed for James's sake and not for 
your own, you would have gone to work 

134 



SELFISHNESS 

at once to mend matters — instead of 
shutting yourself up and mourning with 
self-pity." If some one could have said 
that to Jane and if she could have 
listened, recognized the truth and acted 
upon it, it would have been a turning 
point in her life, and it would gradually 
have lifted the burden of complacency; 
for, in whatever way we may look at it, 
the selfishness of being good brings with 
it a great burden of which one is quite 
unconscious until one begins to cast it 
off. 

The Jane-James episode is a type of 
very many that are going on about us, 
and probably in most of us, in small 
ways and large ways, every day. If we 
can only awaken to the fact, be on the 
watch for our tests and use them when 
they come, it will mean new insight into 
our own ways, a better understanding of 
others, and new life; for in the selfishness 
of being good there is always a painful 

135 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

strain which uses up our vitality more 
than we know. 

It must require more of an effort to 
pose than to be real. You have to be 
your real self behind the self you are 
trying to appear; and, when one is acting 
to other people and to oneself, too, the 
strain is double and twisted. 

How is it possible for any one to be 
really good who is in the pose of being 
good ? We can with ease — or with 
comparative ease — find ourselves out 
when we are posing to other people, but 
the difficulty is to discover when we are 
posing to ourselves. 

"I never can thank you enough for 
what you have done for me." "Don't 
mention it — don't mention it — I can 
never thank you enough for the privilege 
of being useful to you. I am happy if I 
am useful to other people." 

The first speaker thinks, "How good 
he is," and the second speaker thinks, 

136 



SELFISHNESS 

"how good I am. How beautiful it is 
to be good the way I am." 

There is much more of "I thank thee, 
Lord, that I am not as other men are"; 
much more of that in you, in me, in every 
one of us, than we realize; and, if we want 
to gain freedom of sight and life, we had 
better bestir ourselves to find it out and 
cast it off. 

Some one says that insanity is egotism 
gone to seed — it seems to me that insan- 
ity is sometimes the inflammation of 
so-called goodness. I know a man who 
has a very broad acquaintance, and is 
noted for his kindness and thoughtfulness 
to others. "Who but Mr. Smith would 
ever have thought of that," a mother 
says, when some new and interesting toy 
appears unexpectedly to entertain her sick 
little boy. And the delicacy of Mr. 
Smith's thought for others and its ex- 
pression is really remarkable. But Mr. 
Smith's wife and children have been 

137 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

gradually more and more neglected. At 
first his wife believed in his goodness, 
her love was blind and she delighted in 
hearing other people praise her husband. 
She and he were posing together. The 
time came, however, when she had to 
find him out. She died from the effects; 
but Mr. Smith goes on "being good," 
and I am sure he even now believes him- 
self to be one of the very best men in the 
city of which he is a prominent citizen. 

The pose is chronic with him now. 
His goodness is chronically inflamed and 
he is deep in the insanity of it. His in- 
tellect is all right, his general habits of 
life are all right, but his moral pose is 
monstrous. Some few people have found 
him out besides his wife, but his general 
public believes him to be living for the 
sake of other people. And he is — alas ! 
— at peace with himself. He says grace 
at table. He conducts religious meetings. 
He talks religion — practical religion he 

138 



SELFISHNESS 

calls it — to young men; he befriends 
and advises young women. This is the 
most extreme type of pose that one could 
imagine, more extreme than I had ever 
imagined before I knew him, and his 
character and behavior throws light on 
the minor posings of other people as well 
as on my own. Puppetry — that is what 
it is. It cannot be dignified with the 
name of acting. 

The people who are prominent for 
their eminent respectability have what 
might be called a corner on the selfishness 
of being good. They attend church regu- 
larly, they go in steadfastly for political 
reform, they have a number of charities 
in which they are trustees, not to mention 
minor charities and the worthy poor in- 
dividually, whom they diligently look after. 
These prominent, respectable churchmen 
are so coated over with their selfish habit 
of being good, that you cannot expect to 
touch them with any suggestion out of 

139 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

the line of their own church-going respect- 
ability, — however really good your sug- 
gestion may be. 

The Pharisees and the Publicans and 
Sinners. They are just as clearly dis- 
tinguished now as they were two thousand 
years ago. 

If we study their ways even a little, and 
the way in which Jesus Christ spoke of them 
and dealt with them, and then look about 
us to-day, we can see the same ways in 
others and in ourselves, and we can — if 
we will — live by the same light that the 
Lord Jesus Christ lived by, when He dealt 
with the selfishness of being good from 
His standard of real goodness, — the light 
that He came into the world to give us. 

If we really want to follow this light 
and find the reality of being good, the first 
necessity is to throw away the idea that 
we are better than any one else. No one 
can tell the real character of another 
man; the best of us, with the keenest in- 

140 



SELFISHNESS 

sight, can only tell where a man is wrong 
in places, and where he seems to be right. 
But to judge any human being as a whole, 
to find the balance between his oppor- 
tunities and his temptations, is not 
possible in this world; and the egotistical 
belief that it is possible prevents our 
having the insight into other men which 
would continually expand and grow 
keener if we had humility. 

There may be much in these selfishly 
good people that is really good, only I do 
not see it because the light in which 
they are shown to me does not reveal it. 
Whatever I may see that is wrong in 
another I must notice for the sake of 
avoiding it myself, and to enable me to 
help him to overcome it, if he should 
give me the opportunity; but it would 
be folly to imagine that anything I 
noticed about him would enable me to 
judge the man a£ a whole. No one but 
God Almighty can do that. 

141 



XI 

THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

It is true that it takes two to make a 
quarrel, and it is also true that one can 
make peace. It is one thing to prevent 
a quarrel by refusing to be actively drawn 
into it, and it is quite another thing to 
understand your opponent's point of 
view and deal with it kindly enough to 
bring about a living and reciprocal spirit 
of peace. The first is negative and may 
have any amount of hatred and vindic- 
tiveness repressed; the second is positive 
and can only exist at all by means of the 
broadest and most intelligent love. 

It is in very bad form to quarrel, and 
very disagreeable. "I always absolutely 
refuse to quarrel," one man says, and 
that same man may be holding an ob- 

142 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

stinate opinion with regard to his neigh- 
bor's actions which is far more injurious 
in its effects than an out-and-out fight 
would have been. The repression of a 
quarrel works more harm eventually 
than the quarrel itself. ^Yhen a quarrel 
is repressed there is a sub-conscious 
antagonism which is very subtle in its 
action, and very injurious, in countless 
ways, to us, and to those who have 
roused our antagonism. Above all is 
this true when we cover our antagonism 
with a sugar coat of kindliness. Kindli- 
ness which we fully believe to be real 
until some unexpected happening rouses 
the hidden hatred, and then we are taken 
so by surprise that our first effort is to 
push the hatred into the background at 
once and put on a thicker coating of 
sugar. 

It is the emergencies in life that test out 
real eharacter, and any one who cares to 
grow in inner strength and power for 

143 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

use will welcome the test of every 
emergency. 

These tests come from the hand of 
"Providence which shapes our ends, 
rough hew them as we may." It never 
works to think a test, or to prepare one 
for ourselves; that is useless and worth- 
less. On the other hand, it is steadily 
weakening not to take any opportunity 
which offers when we know it contains a 
test. There is nothing that seems to 
prove more conclusively that we are in 
the steady care of a higher power than 
this unexpected recurrence of tests. 

I once had a friend who had been 
most unjustly treated by another man 
and who thought he had entirely forgiven 
him. The other man was his own brother 
and my friend even went out of his way 
to serve him. He was full of kindness 
in his manner toward him. He watched 
over his needs and tried to supply them, 
not only in ways that his brother knew 

144 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

about, but in other ways, when he could 
only receive the benefit without knowing 
its source. The man told me himself 
that whenever he had a particularly good 
time he longed for his brother to share 
it — and he told me too, without any ap- 
parent ostentation, or any apparent self- 
righteousness. But, — the brother went 
several steps farther in his injustice one 
day, and it came to this man's knowledge; 
quick as thought the flood gates were 
opened and he poured forth a torrent of 
hatred which, if it had had its way fully, 
had in it force enough to murder any 
man twice over. No one could have 
been more surprised than the man him- 
self. He was sincere, and, when the 
hatred was once started, he made no 
attempt to keep or repress it, he let it all 
come and all the hating words come with 
it. When it had exhausted itself for the 
time being he looked stunned. And then 

said, in monotonous tones as if the dis- 

145 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

covery had quite taken the life out of 
him, "And all that was in me!" He was 
heavy and stolid for days afterward. I 
knew his repentance was alive, for every 
now and then he would drop a remark 
which showed clearly that he was in the 
process of changing his aim. In the 
meanwhile he did nothing for his brother. 
He did not even go near him. He seemed 
to have lost confidence in his ability to 
really serve any one. However, I knew 
him well, and I felt sure that he was only 
steering to get into the wind and that he 
would sail steadily when the time came. 
One day he said, " Harry thought that he 
was doing right when he made that 
trouble for me." 

'Yes/' I answered, "I know he did; 
but if he had been more generous or had 
clearer understanding he would have 
seen that he was doing a desperately 
mean thing." 

"But," said my friend, "He is not 
146 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

more generous, and he has not a clearer 
understanding, and he has been doing 
what, from his point of view, he considers 
perfectly right." 

I got a little annoyed here, I thought 
he was lapsing into his goody-goodiness 
again, and I answered somewhat sharply, 
"But his point of view is neither generous 
nor intelligent — certainly you must allow 
that." 

"It is, however, the point of view 
which most of the world shares with 
him." 

"Does that make it any the more 
generous or any the less stupid?" 

"No — no — no — but it makes it 
easier for him to stay blind. Now you 
answer me again, is he not doing what 
he considers to be "perfectly right?" 

"Yes, he is." 

" Could any possible argument at pres- 
ent convince him that he had done 
wrong?" 

147 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

"No argument that I know of could 
open his eyes in the least." 

"Does not he feel that he is just as 
much in the effort to live a good life as 
I am?" 

" Most assuredly he does — only I 
think he believes himself to be some 
miles ahead of you in that effort." 

"Well, then, if that is his point of 
view, why should I not respect it?" 

This time I was sure of the lapse into 
goody-goodiness, and I jumped to my 
feet with disappointed excitement. " What 
are you talking about, Jack ? " I said. " If 
you believe your own point of view, how 
can you by any chance respect another 
point of view so diametrically opposed 
to it — it is absurd on the face of it." 

" Now sit down — sit down," my friend 

said very quietly. "You need not be 

afraid, I am not getting sugar-coated 

again." We both smiled here and I 

listened. 

148 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

"All that I am after/ 5 he said, "is cool 
justice — do you hear — just downright 
cool justice. Why should I blame a man 
if he is color blind, and is using the colors 
as he sees them, just because his misuse of 
colors breaks in upon my life and causes 
me no end of trouble ? I do not neces- 
sarily accept his point of view because 
I respect it. I respect it as his point of 
view\ If we were both men of science, 
say, on equal terms, and he was going to 
try a process of chemical analysis which 
I felt perfectly sure would make a mess 
in the laboratory and produce no good 
result, after I had told him what I thought, 
would I have any right to interfere if he 
preferred to persist in his own way?" 

"No — I suppose not." 

'Well, then, he has just as much right 

to his point of view as I have to mine. 

This is not a question as to which one is 

right, it is a question of a man's freedom 

— and every man should, as far as pos- 

149 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

sible, respect the freedom of every 
other/ 5 

"Oh, I see" — and the new light that 
dawned upon me awoke in me a vivid 
sense of pleasure. 

" Good — I am glad you see," my 
friend answered, and his face actually 
shone with the broad smile of a happy 
discovery. "Now look steadily as I show 
you more, and you will like that too." 
Here he gave a quiet little chuckle; his 
head had ached over his problem, and 
his heart too, and his nerves had become 
enough shaken by it to have taken the 
color out of his face and put some new 
lines there, but now the color was return- 
ing and the lines were disappearing, and 
no one who knew him well could fail to 
see that a load had been lifted from his 
mind, and yet his brother and other 
people were just the same, nothing had 
changed outside, nothing whatever, but 
the man himself was another being. As 

150 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

light began to dawn upon me I became 
alive with interest and I listened atten- 
tively as he went on speaking with the 
strength of conviction. 

"Now look here," he said, "don't you 
see that the whole trouble is that I have 
been resisting Harry's point of view?" 

"How could you help resisting it when 
it was so stupid and so wrong?" 

"Did I help it to be less stupid or less 
wrong by resisting it?" 

" No — but you could not agree with it." 

"Of course not." 

"Then if you could not agree with it, 
how could you help resisting it?" 

"Do you remember the account we 
read yesterday of a man worming him- 
self into a good position by false methods 
and then defending his attitude with 
apparently the honest conviction that he 
had done only what was right? Do you 
remember how we both exclaimed on the 
way a man's ambitions could blind him 

151 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

and the possible fallacy of apparently 
very good reasoning?" 

"Yes." 

"Do you remember that that man in 
pushing his way through the crowd to 
get to the top had done very real harm 
to many people?" 

"Yes." 

"More harm than my brother could 
possibly do to me — no matter what he 
said or how he acted ?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you feel any resistance to that 
man's behavior?" 

; No — why should I — it did not 



<< * 



concern me. 



There — there you have it — ' be- 
cause it did not concern you.' My 
brother's behavior did concern me, and 
it was my own selfish resistance to his 
unbrotherly way which I was uncon- 
sciously repressing and which roused me 
to such fury when once it got to the sur- 

152 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

face. It was nothing but downright self- 
ish resistance which prevented my seeing 
that he was acting with entire consistency 
according to his point of view, and it 
was nothing but my selfish resistance 
which prevented my understanding his 
point of view as thoroughly as I do 
now. I tell you life is quite another 
thing for us when we treat with respect 
the other man's point of view, and 
refuse to resist it. The other man may 
be absolutely wrong and we may be 
absolutely right; that has nothing what- 
ever to do with it. We must respect his 
freedom and respect it through and 
through in our souls, in our minds, and 
in our bodies." 

My friend stopped here, and it was not 
necessary for him to continue for he had 
convinced me thoroughly, and every day 
I have lived I have become more con- 
vinced because the whole thing "prove s 
itself in living. 

153 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

If we respect the other man's freedom 
and give him our best attention although 
he may be all wrong, a sincere and quiet 
endeavor on our part to understand his 
point of view will quiet our minds so that 
if he can be convinced of his mistakes 
we will be in a proper state to convince 
him without rousing his antagonism. 
We should never strive to convince any 
one against his will. Tell him the truth, 
if it is necessary, and then leave him free 
to take it or not as he pleases. It is the 
only possible way to really serve another, 
if he does not reach out for help. 

Another and most important thing is 
that the other man's point of view may 
be right and our own wrong. In that 
case, if we really want the right and 
not our own way, and if we listen atten- 
tively to the other man with a desire to 
see his point of view, we are open to dis- 
cover our mistakes and to rectify them. 
In many cases, perhaps in most cases, 

154 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

there is right on both sides and wrong on 
both sides. If A sees B attending with 
respect to A's point of view and willing 
to recognize some truth in it, and at the 
same time to acknowledge a mistake in 
his own point of view, then A will be 
more inclined to listen and acknowledge 
wrong in his turn. The more fair- 
minded B is, the more fair-minded A 
will want to be. There are very few 
so brimful of personal prejudice that 
they are not sooner or later moved by 
absolute fair-mindedness on the other 
side. It takes time, sometimes it takes 
a very long time, but it always works 
eventually if we are steady enough. 

Let us try to understand the other 
man's point of view, and respect his 
freedom in holding it. If we live con- 
sistently according to that principle every 
day, it is proved to us more conclusively 
in little things and in big things that 
although it takes two to make a quarrel 

155 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

one can always make peace in his own 
heart and keep it. 

True peace must always be the result 
of struggle and victory, and this is what 
gives it its strength and influence over 
the minds of men. It is recorded of 
Abraham Lincoln, when he was a young 
jury lawyer, that he won his cases by 
the evident fairness with which he stated 
the facts even before he had begun his 
argument. He understood the point of 
view of his opponent, and gave full 
credit to all that he recognized as good 
and true on the other side. Then, after 
having clearly stated the facts as he truly 
understood them to be, he proceeded to 
demolish his opponent's case before a 
jury which he had already more than 
half won. He could not, of course, have 
done this if he had been willing to accept 
cases which he did not consider inherently 
just. The sincere conviction of truth is 
necessary to all living wisdom and power, 

156 



THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW 

and we cannot gain the inestimably 
precious gift of practical justice without 
the conscientiousness of continually giv- 
ing up all petty, personal, and prejudiced 
considerations in ourselves. 



157 



XII 

THE GREATEST NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

The colleges for women in America 
have not as a rule been developed from 
lower forms of boarding-schools; they 
have been copies of the colleges for men. 
The demand for the higher education of 
women has been in part the result of 
dissatisfaction with the existing finishing- 
schools, so called; in part the result of an 
attempt to diminish the inequalities of 
condition between men and women. The 
chances for men in the intellectual sphere 
were seen to be vastly superior to those 
for women, and in a country where public 
education of the lower grades was free 
and equal for girls and boys, it was in- 
evitable that a state of affairs could not 
be permanent which saw the academy 

158 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

doors close behind both boys and girls, 
and the college doors open only to 
boys. 

In the experiments which have been 
made to satisfy this demand for the higher 
education of women, there have been 
and still are three general forms: the col- 
lege in which the two sexes meet on equal 
terms, the annex in which the appliances 
of an existing college are used for a co- 
ordinate institution, and the college ex- 
clusively for women. In studying the 
essential conditions of collegiate life for 
women it is best to take this last form, 
since it permits the freest development, 
and offers the most open field for observa- 
tion and experiment. 

The college for women, then, in Amer- 
ica has naturally been modeled as closely 
as possible upon the lines of existing 
colleges for men. It is the ambition of 
Vassar, of Smith, of Wellesley, to give as 
thorough an education to young women 

159 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

as the colleges whose curricula they sub- 
stantially adopt give to young men. 
They would efface all intellectual dis- 
tinctions of sex. In one particular only 
is there an obvious discrimination. The 
part which athletics play in college life 
for men has no answering equivalent in 
college life for women. No one who has 
watched the gymnasium and the field in 
the one case would contend that there is a 
corresponding condition in the other. It 
is true that in well-equipped colleges for 
women the gymnasium is found, and that 
the higher forms of outdoor athletics are 
practised; but it by no means follows that 
the difference is one only of degree, that 
in the development of these colleges there 
will be an approximation to the physical 
culture which exists in the colleges which 
they copy. The boldest advocate of an 
intellectual parity which should discover 
no distinction between the sexes in the 
class room would shrink from demand- 

160 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

ing or expecting a physical parity in the 
gymnasium or on the field. 

Now in the education of the man 
athletics represent, not physical develop- 
ment integrally, but physical develop- 
ment as related to intellectual, moral, 
and religious development. That is to 
say, physical culture is a means to an 
end, not an end in itself; and the perver- 
sion of this doctrine, apparent as it is in 
the case of individual men, does not im- 
pair the fundamental truth. It is the 
constant study of college authorities to 
regulate athletics just as they regulate 
courses of study with reference to the 
symmetrical and sane development of 
manhood, and the practical problem is 
in the repressing, not the encouragement, 
of athletic zeal. 

How is it in colleges for women ? The 
situation is almost reversed. The con- 
stant study of the authorities is, not to 
regulate, but to enforce physical culture; 

m 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

not to encourage, but to repress intellec- 
tual excitability. This broad distinction 
marks a radical difference between the 
sexes, and any consideration of the true 
development of colleges for women must 
take it into account. However closely 
these colleges may copy their models in 
matters of scholarship and discipline, 
they are bound to recognize the diver- 
gence of nature in this particular of phys- 
ical culture. They cannot blindly follow 
the lead of colleges for men, and think 
they have gained their end when they 
have set up a gymnasium, made exercise 
compulsory, and provided for boating, 
tennis, and grace hoops. 

The muscular training of men is a 
primal physical need. In the order of 
time, of scale, and of logic, it is first. 
The success with which it is accom- 
plished determines in a very considerable 
degree the success to be attained in 

mental and moral development. This 

162 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

may be asserted of the college as a whole, 
though there are marked examples of 
intellectual success secured in the face 
of immense physical disabilities. 

It does not require acute perception 
to find the greatest physical need among 
women in our schools and colleges. A 
collective need is most often an exag- 
geration of the average individual 
shortcoming. No one who has been an 
inmate of a large college for women will 
deny the general state of rush and hurry 
which prevails there. "No time" is the 
cry from morning until night. Worry 
and hurry mark the average condition 
of the schoolgirl. If she is not hurried 
or worried herself, through the happy 
possession of a phlegmatic temperament, 
she cannot entirely resist the pressure 
about her. The spirit of the place is too 
strong for an individual to be in it and 
not of it. The strain is evident in the 
faces of students and teachers. It is 

163 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

evident in the number who annually 
break down from overstudy. More piti- 
ably evident is it in those who have not 
wholly broken down, but are near enough 
the verge of disaster to have forgotten 
what a normal state of mind and body is. 
We can only think, in the presence of 
such an one, what a magnificent speci- 
men of womanhood that might have been, 
with a constitution that holds its own 
through such daily strain, and does not 
give in completely. This greatest phys- 
ical need among studious women is so 
evident that those who will can see it. 
Those who will not see it are living in so 
abnormal a state themselves that they 
do not recognize the want because of 
their own necessity. Men and women 
can breathe bad air and not know it, but 
one coming directly from out-of-doors 
will be sickened at once. 

To see the strain at its height, it must 
be watched during examinations. The 

164 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

average schoolgirl — or schoolwoman — 
would not feel that she had taken her 
examination properly unless she had 
taken it in a condition of worry, hurry, 
fright, and general excitement. Mark 
the contrast in this respect between col- 
leges for men and those for women. 
Students in the former are not without 
their share of nervous strain, especially 
in examinations, but the strain is notice- 
ably far less than among the women. 
The explanation of the difference is com- 
monly found to lie in the physical exer- 
cise taken, in football, rowing, and other 
out-of-door sports, which give men new 
life for study and restore the balance of 
the nervous system. But when girls 
should try this corrective to the same 
extent, they devote such intense nervous 
energy to play, they have so little real 
abandon, that the result in many cases 
is nervous strain and excitement, from 
which they must in turn recover before 

165 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

going on with study. The balance must 
be restored by some other means. 

Let us look a little deeper into the 
temperamental reason for this strain. A 
woman's self-consciousness is her great- 
est enemy. Custom is partly to blame 
for this, because it is so generally felt that 
man is to admire, and woman to be ad- 
mired. Thus a woman is born into and 
inherits a " to-be-admired " state of mind, 
and her freedom is delayed in proportion. 
Few realize the absolute nervous strain 
in self-consciousness; and if to self-con- 
sciousness we add a sensitive conscience, 
we have come near to a full explanation. 
Mr. Howells perhaps exaggerates when 
he tells us that a New England woman 
is not strong intellectually, but she has a 
conscience like the side of a house. He 
might be truthful and give her a larger 
allowance of brains, but he could not 
rightly reduce the dimensions of the con- 
science. Men have not so great a strain 

166 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

in self-consciousness, and the tyranny 
of a morbid conscience is less real to 
them. In the atmosphere of men's col- 
leges, either among the faculty or the 
students, there is not a tenth part of 
the unnecessary excitement that we find 
in women's colleges. The faces of the 
students tell their own story. Nervous 
strain is far less evident. 

This contrast emphasizes the proposi- 
tion which I maintain, namely, that the 
first, the greatest physical need for women 
is a training to rest : not rest in the sense 
of doing nothing, not repose in the sense 
of inanitv or inactivity, but a restful 
activity of mind and body, which means 
a vigorous, wholesome nervous system 
that will enable a woman to abandon 
herself to her study, her work, and her 
play with a freedom and ease which are 
too fast becoming, not a lost art, but lost 
nature. We have jumped at the con- 
clusion that the style of training which 

167 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

is admirably suited to men must be 
equally adapted to women. However 
that may be in the future, there is a prior 
necessity with women. After their great- 
est physical need is supplied, will reach 
the place where their power can be in- 
creased through vigorous exercise. 

It is evident that the gymnasiums and 
various exercises established in schools 
and colleges for women have done little 
or nothing toward supplying this greatest 
need. The girls are always defeating the 
end of the exercise: first, by entering 
into every motion of the exercise itself 
with too much nervous strain; second, 
by following in their manner of study, in 
their general attitude of mind and habit 
of body, ways that must effectually tell 
against the physical power which might 
be developed by the exercise. Truly the 
first necessity now is to teach a girl to 
approach her work, physical or mental, 
in a normal, healthy way, — to accom- 

168 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

plish what she has to do naturally, using 
only the force required to gain her point; 
not worrying all the time she studies for 
fear the lesson will not be learned; not 
feeling rushed from morning to night for 
fear her work will not be done; not going 
about with a burden of unnecessary 
anxiety, a morbid fear of her teachers, 
and a general attitude toward life which 
means strain, and constant strain. A 
glance forward intensifies the gravity of 
the case. Such habits once developed in 
a girl who is fitting herself to teach are 
strongly felt by her pupils when she takes 
the position of teacher. The nervous 
strain is reflected back and forth from 
teacher to pupil, and is thus forcing itself 
upon the notice of others, and proving 
day by day more clearly what is the 
greatest physical need. 

Those who have observed this ten- 
dency are wont to say, "Give the girls 
plenty of exercise, plenty of fresh air, 

169 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

see that they sleep and eat well, and this 
greatest need will be supplied without 
thought/' If the unhealthy condition 
we have noted were just making its ap- 
pearance, the remedy would be suffi- 
cient. As it is, such a remedy suffices 
in a few cases, in most cases partially, 
but in some not at all. The habit has 
stood now through too many generations 
to be overcome without a distinct recog- 
nition of the loss of power, and a strong 
realization of the need of regaining this 
power. Indeed, so great a hold on the 
community has this want of quiet and 
easy activity in study and in play that 
it is not rare to find young girls who 
believe the abnormal to be the natural 
life, and the other unnatural. As one 
girl told me once in perfect good faith, 
"I keep well on excitement, but it tires 
me terribly to carry a pitcher of water 
up-stairs." This I know is an extreme 
instance, and yet not so uncommon as I 

170 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

wish it were. To swing such a girl, or 
one approaching so abnormal a state, 
suddenly back into the normal would 
be most disastrous; she would not recog- 
nize the world or herself, and would 
really suffer intensely. She must be 
carried step by step. To restore her is 
like curing a drunkard. 

Let us suppose a school started in the 
United States having in its scheme a dis- 
tinct intention of eliminating all hurry 
and worry, and training girls to a normal 
state of active repose. Suppose that to 
be the main idea of the school. To get 
rid of the "no time" fever, the teachers 
would need to accept the fundamental 
principle that it is not the acquisition of 
knowledge, but the training of power to 
think, which is the justification of school 
or college. A girl can at most gain in 
her school life but an iota of the knowl- 
edge which is possible to her, but she can 
attain the power of acquiring knowledge; 

171 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

and if this end is kept in view on the part 
both of teachers and pupils, more regard 
will be paid to the order of studies and 
the method in each than to the quantity 
of facts gathered in any one study. With 
a subordination of the desire to amass 
knowledge, every course of study fol- 
lowed will help other courses taken at 
the same time, and others to come, and 
make it comparatively easy for the stu- 
dent to acquire more after the school 
years are over. A mind truly trained 
attracts and absorbs unconsciously, it di- 
gests and it produces, and the way is never 
stopped with useless facts. As the unity of 
intellectual work is recognized, the great- 
est physical need will be more readily 
met; for by an insistance upon that which 
is of first importance intellectually the cry 
of "no time" will subside. When a girl 
feels rushed she begins to lose mental 
power in proportion, however well she 

may seem to work at any one time. 

172 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

This is the first change which our 
model school would effect, and its next 
most important reform would be so to 
arrange the daily work that there would 
be a marked rhythm in the alternation of 
studies. A body and mind, to be whole- 
some, must be trained to action and re- 
action, not action and inaction. There 
is often the most perfect rest in freeing 
one set of faculties entirely and working 
another. Indeed, action and reaction 
is the order of being, for in sleep, the 
most entire rest, the body is busy receiv- 
ing supplies for new activity when it 
shall awake. 

There should be vigorous exercises, 
plenty of carefully chosen food, long 
sleeping-times; a friendly attitude and 
perfect confidence between students and 
teachers must be cultivated, but with- 
out emotionalizing. Now, supposing so 
wholesome a state of things to be or- 
ganized, the end is not yet. The 

173 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

hurry and worry will creep in and will 
be strongly felt, because of the girls' 
mothers and grandmothers and great- 
grandmothers, not to mention the in- 
heritance which often comes from the 
paternal ancestry. There still remains 
for our school a distinct power to cul- 
tivate, a power to be gained through 
repose; not a forced, a studied, or a flabby 
repose, but a natural repose which is self- 
forgetful, and often delightfully active. 
"Freedom" is a better word than "re- 
pose." Freedom includes repose; and 
for physical and mental freedom, women 
should have special training. If special 
training to that end is needed in our 
imaginary school, established with that 
purpose in view and with the spirit of 
true freedom animating its entire faculty, 
it certainly is sadly needed in the schools 
and colleges where power through repose 
is often as fatally lacking in teachers as 
in the girls under their charge. 

174 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

The work should begin with physical 
training, including a training of the 
voice. If the course be followed care- 
fully, it will soon affect the mental work. 
and special exercises to help the activity 
of mind will follow. But let us lay the 
foundation first, stand the girls on their 
feet, and demonstrate that a perfect 
physical balance means a better working 
head. As the physical work progresses, 
every lesson may contain the application 
of true freedom to study and recitation. 
Thus the mental and physical will each 
help the other, and the whole woman 
will feel that she is dropping chains. A 
freedom from the limitations of self will 
lead to a freedom from self-consciousnes-. 
which is only possible to a wholesome 
nervous system. A woman so trained 
will, except in emergencies, be beyond 
the apparent necessity of controlling her- 
self, for she will have learned how to let 
nature control her. 

175 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

Let us follow an imaginary class in 
physical training, the more truly to gain 
an idea of the practical working of our 
principle. All through the class work 
deep breathing should be practised, not 
only for its quieting and restful effect, but 
for the new vigor that comes with it, and 
the steady, even development which deep 
breathing so greatly assists. The deep 
breathing also prevents an extreme re- 
laxation, which is as harmful as extreme 
tension, and prevents too quick a re- 
actionary effect when a tense body is at 
once relaxed. In beginning with the 
deep breaths, it will be found that few 
members of a large class can take a deep 
breath at all, and not one has an idea of 
what it is to breathe quietly. The sooth- 
ing effect of a long quiet breath is never 
realized until one has been trained to 
inhale and exhale with the least possible 
effort. Even before this power has been 
gained, regular breathing will quiet a 

176 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

mild case of hysteria, as it will do away 
with stage fright. Members of the class 
must, to some degree, be trained sep- 
arately for the deep breaths, in order that 
it may be clear to each what a deep quiet 
breath is ; what it is to feel as if the breath 
took her, and not as if she took the breath. 
It is also requisite to avoid the curious 
strain which one often experiences under 
the impression that by holding herself 
as if in a vise while she inhales she is 
taking a quiet breath. 

Quiet should be the first aim, in this 
class for physical culture, — a natural 
quiet, not a forced quiet. This can be 
gained collectively to a delightful degree, 
for one mind acts upon another, and, in 
a large class the weaker brains feel the 
influence of the stronger. Each mem- 
ber of the class having a general idea 
of a deep breath, the quiet should be 
gained through breathing exercises, which 
cannot be given here. Suffice it to say, 

177 



EVERJ DAY LIVING 

the teacher should have always in mind, 
from the first, natural quiet as an end, 
and lead to that through long regular 
breaths — rhythmic breaths, from twenty- 
five to fifty — and other forms of exer- 
cise. The result of this training is 
strongly apparent in a single person, and 
still more when a class works together. 
The action upon the brain of deep breath- 
ing is well known. It is not only deep 
breathing, but deep breathing with the 
least possible effort, that does the good 
work. The class should take slow, regu- 
lar exercises for the relaxation of the 
muscles and further quieting of the 
nerves, interspersed always with deep 
breathing. After the special deep-breath- 
ing and the relaxing exercises, the voice 
training should begin and continue as a 
part of the regular work. A want of 
natural equilibrium tells more in the 
sound of the voice and manner of speak- 
ing than in any other one physical action; 

178 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

and a woman should be trained to the 
true freedom of her voice with the rest 
of her body. 

The exercises for suppleness of the 
joints and muscles would come next; 
these should include the direction of 
force, and often be very rapid, but must 
increase in rapidity only as they can be 
taken with perfect ease. The exercises 
must be taken with only the part of the 
body meant to be used, allowing no super- 
ficial "sympathy" in any other part. 
Then should follow motions for finer 
balance and for spring; and the class 
work might end with the quiet breathing 
and voice training. This course should 
be taken gradually, so that a clear idea 
of what thev are aiming at will dawn 
upon the girls without too much hard 
thinking. Although the teacher must 
never once lose her central aim, it is 
better for the girls to follow the exercises 
more or less automatically. If they fail 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

to come out of such a class not only with 
new vigor, but with a clearer idea each 
day of how to let nature's laws work 
through them in study and in play, such 
failure will show a want of the true spirit 
in the teacher who leads them; or it may 
be that the air of the room has not been 
fit for breathing. Two elements are 
necessary in the teacher of such a class: 
that she should have the daily habit of 
obeying the laws she teaches; and that 
she should pretend in no way to stand 
as a perfect example of the laws, but 
should impress her pupils with the idea 
that they are all students together, and 
subject to the same laws. With this and 
a loving patience, a woman cannot fail 
to rouse other women to their best, unless 
her environment is greatly against her. 

I have tried simply to follow the regu- 
lar physical work in a class which trains 
a woman to vigor and restful activity 
through a process which trains her first 

180 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

to supply her greatest need, the power 
of rest. With this should come a train- 
ing to meet sudden emergencies with a 
clear head; to drop the excitement of 
such emergencies when once the trouble 
is removed, and even before it has wholly 
disappeared; to have the power of ignor- 
ing nagging worries. Indeed, a great 
end is accomplished when a girl has ac- 
quired the ability to distinguish herself 
from her nervous system so far as to 
recognize when a worry is an effect of 
indigestion or some other physical de- 
rangement, and treat it as such; when 
she can bear it as a pain, if it must be, 
and will not increase it by admitting that 
it has any real foundation, and will drop 
it as soon as it can be dropped. Much 
useless suffering will be saved women 
who learn in school how to meet the 
various annovances and cares that are 
sure to come in some form later. Many 
a woman is the slave of her nervous 

181 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

system because she does not know it; and 
a nervously magnified conscience will 
whip a woman into all sorts of absurd 
work which simply drains her beyond 
recovery, because she has not been taught 
how she may distinguish herself from 
a set of tired or disordered nerves. To 
all this may be added the help which 
will come from women to other women 
through realizing when they are not to 
be taken seriously, however it may be 
necessary to appear serious. 

The popular mind seldom makes allow- 
ance for difference in temperament. Some 
time ago I watched two girls in a tennis 
match, one of whom was under the 
process of training to a better freedom; 
her movements were quick, graceful, 
and supple, but her excitable nervous 
system, inherited from intellectually active 
parents, still mastered her. Her ex- 
pression was intense. Nearly all in the 

audience were her friends and admirers, 

182 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

eager to have her win. She was not only 
vividly alive to every personal wish for 
her, but acutely conscious of herself as 
the center of attraction. The other 
player, the daughter of a countryman, 
was apparently stolid, with splendid mus- 
cular power. Her expression hardly 
changed. She did not know the audience 
nor realize their presence, apparently, 
although she must have been perfectly 
aware of their partiality for her opponent. 
She played directly, and her whole mind 
was upon every stroke of her racket. Of 
course she won the game. A bystander 
said to me, with a superior smile and not 
a little scorn, "You see this 'relaxing' 
does not always win." My answer was, 
"It certainly does. Your country girl 
was the more 'relaxed." The girl who 
lost had a most sensitive nervous organiza- 
tion, with a power far beyond the other, 
but one that must take longer to find its 
balance. The winner had her equilib- 

183 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

rium on a much lower plane. Take 
Diana herself and put her in this country, 
surrounded with all its influences, and 
after five years she would lose the first 
tennis match against just such a phleg- 
matic temperament. With equal scorn 
our critic might say, "You see, my 
friends, a goddess does not always win." 
What then can we expect of our highly 
bred women who have generations of 
nervous strain back of them? Diana 
would win the second match, for she 
would at once see her mistake, and have 
her constitution to back her in correcting 
it. The compensation to the goddess 
would be great in an acute realization 
of what it is to allow a fine, wholesome 
nervous system to work according to its 
own laws. We need to train our girls 
first to the wholesomeness which must 
come through the power to rest, and 
then to the normal use of the real power 
as it grows upon them. They have 

184 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

much more to work against than Diana 
after her five years, and their apprecia- 
tion would be keener in proportion. 

In connection with the whole subject 
there is a fundamental principle to be 
carefully noted. To make the best of 
this training which is meant to help 
toward a natural way of doing whatever 
may be before us, the life itself must be 
regular and normal. It is a great mis- 
take for a woman to train herself to do 
her work more easily in order to crowd 
more work or play into her life than she 
ought to carry. No woman has the 
natural spirit of repose who, finding she 
can attend to particulars with increasing 
facility, crowds her life in general. Much 
more can be accomplished, of course^ 
by learning how to rest and how not to 
waste force; but that gives all the stronger 
reason for recognizing one's limitations 
and being guided by them. In the one 
way, the limitations decrease; in the 

185 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

other, they increase to a startling extent. 
People wonder that a training for rest 
should result in fatigue, without noting 
the fact that the training itself has been 
presumed upon. So must the whole 
spirit of our schools be changed if they 
are to educate women to absolutely 
wholesome bodies and the best possible 
use of their minds. A young man rising 
from a severe fit of illness was told by his 
physician that it was useless for him to 
try to get through college; he had not 
the strength for the continued work. He 
obtained the physician's consent to study 
two hours a day. By realizing the best 
use of those two hours, he passed through 
college, and graduated among the first 
of his class. But he rested entirely the 
remaining hours of the day. If, finding 
that he had gained such power of con- 
centration, he had tried to use it every 
hour in the day without reaction, the 
result would have been disastrous. 

186 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

This country seems now like a pre- 
cocious child. Because it shows won- 
derful powers and intense activity, it is 
pushed to display itself more and more; 
and unless the child is quieted, and made 
to enjoy natural, childlike ways, there is 
danger that the man will fall far short 
of the brilliancy promised by the child. 
Surely the mothers of the country need 
the quiet most, and need it first. 

In brief, in the men and women who 
are healthy workers and players there is 
a complete reaction from every action; 
they drop on the ground and give up to 
gravity when "time is called;" the others 
walk up and down, and worry over their 
past plays and wonder over those to 
come. These last can be led, through 
physical training and moral suasion, until 
they are in the same wholesome current. 
They can be, if they will be; if the train- 
ing commences early enough, they must 
be. The greatest strength of a college 
187 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

will come when this active repose or 
restful activity can be so taken as a 
matter of course that it need never be 
thought of at all. Under these condi- 
tions men and women would be sensitive 
to the slightest disobedience of such 
natural laws and correct it at once, as 
they are now sensitive to more flagrant 
disobedience of other laws. Then would 
come a freedom of mind and body such 
as we see now only in the most healthy 
little children. 

A woman's education should prepare 
her to hold to the best of her ability what- 
ever position life may offer. A training 
to help her to a wholesome use of a nor- 
mal nervous system must be the founda- 
tion upon which she stands if she would 
perform in the best way the work which 
lies before her. No womanly woman 
wants to be a very good man, but a very 
true woman, and as such she not only 
holds her own place firmly, but helps 

188 



NEED OF COLLEGE GIRLS 

man to hold his. A man's life in the 
world is in this age full of temptation to 
nervous strain and worry. If he takes 
the overwrought state home only to find 
a similar state in his wife, increased by just 
so much as the natural intensity of the 
feminine nervous system exceeds that of 
the masculine, he does not go home to rest, 
but to more nervous strain ; and the wear- 
ing effect upon one of the excited and tired 
nervous system of another who is nearly re- 
lated is more fatiguing in a few hours than 
would be as many days of severe work. 

In contrast to this place the ideal of re- 
pose that may be found in a woman, and 
the influence it may have upon a man, not 
only because of the restful atmosphere to 
which he returns, but the certainty through- 
out the day that there is the quiet strength 
at home, and that he will surely find it. 

Because the nerves of the average 
woman are far more excitable than those 
of the average man, we could not only 

189 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

reach the man by means of the woman, 
but by training the mothers reach more 
surely the next generation, so that later 
this natural economy of our nervous 
force may come, in school and out, as a 
matter of course. And where could we 
better begin the training than in our 
schools and colleges for women? 



190 



XIII 

DIVERSIONS 

"I must keep going, for if I stop I have 
to think, and I cannot bear to think." 
This is a bona fide remark made by a 
sane woman, and unfortunately it is not 
singular. There are many women, and 
men too, who could make the same re- 
mark with truth. I remember a man, 
with his face lined and almost scarred 
with the strain of wanting what he was 
forced to do without, exerting himself to 
find fun and diversion in riding horse- 
back, especially in hunting. I never 
saw such a painful semblance of joy as 
that man's horse talk. He had all the 
terms and all the manner of a happy 
horseman, but it was a body without a 
soul. Every time I heard him talk I 

191 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

was impressed with the sadness of it, 
while I am sure that he felt he was giving 
the impression of a jolly good time. I 
speak of this man especially because he 
is an example — under a microscope — 
of the futility of insincere amusement. 
All who seek diversion to get away from 
themselves have the same sadness under- 
neath, but with most people it is deeper 
in, and does not show on the surface, 
except when the unavoidable reaction 
comes, and then it appears in the form 
of extreme depression or ugliness. How 
often we hear people say, "I am either 
way down or way up;" and they say it as 
if it were a fixed and immovable fact 
and perhaps something of which they 
might feel proud. If we observe such 
people, in the course of years, we see 
always that unless they are aiming con- 
sciously toward equanimity, each year 
when they go down they go farther 
down, and when they go up they go 

192 



DIVERSIONS 

farther up, and often their life ends with 
a painful smash, or with a settled, dull, 
heavy depression which is torture to 
bear. 

The way men and women try to dodge 
the necessary discipline of life with diver- 
sion is like a child who goes fishing in- 
stead of getting his arithmetic lesson. 
He must get the lesson eventually, he 
knows he must, and yet he dreads it. 
He dreads it especially if he does not like 
arithmetic, and by constantly diverting 
himself he tries to dodge it. First he 
tries to get rid of it entirely by playing 
truant; then when that is out of the 
question, and he is established at his 
desk with slate and pencil, he tries to 
dodge it by drawing pictures, or by 
catching flies, or by making faces at the 
other children, and diverting their atten- 
tion as well as his own. All the while 
he knows he will be kept in after school 
if he does not work out a certain num- 

193 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

ber of problems. Still he goes on with 
his habit of amusing himself and neglect- 
ing his arithmetic, and when the time 
comes he is kept in after school. The 
teacher keeps him in and he keeps the 
teacher in until finally, by dint of being 
watched and driven, the boy finishes the 
work and he and the teacher go home 
dragged out and jaded, cross and dis- 
agreeable. 

Grown-up boys and girls, out of 
school, who are constantly diverting them- 
selves rather than doing their sums, do 
not know what form their punishment 
will take, and many of them would be 
surprised if they knew that sooner or 
later they would be forced to do their 
sums, and many more do not realize that 
they have any sums to do. Anything, 
anything, rather than to face the problem 
that has to be solved and work it out like 
a man. I remember a man who was in 
the midst of tremendous business respon- 

194 



DIVERSIONS 

sibilities. Every problem he had to do 
with he was entirely capable of solving 
and thus establishing a broad and use- 
ful work. But he hated the brain effort, 
he hated to apply himself as steadfastly 
as would be necessary to put the business 
through successfully. His own bread 
and butter depended upon his success. 
Not only that, but the bread and butter 
of many more besides himself, and not 
only that, but the success of his enter- 
prise would have been a broad and ex- 
tended use throughout the country. I 
was closely associated with him in his 
interests, his problems were my prob- 
lems, because of our friendly relations, 
and when, sitting in his office one early 
afternoon, in the midst of a crisis, I saw 
him go to the telephone and ring a man 
up to ask him if he could play tennis the 
next hour, I fairly turned faint. I said 
nothing. He would not have listened to 
me if I had, but I watched him divert 

195 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

himself from that day on until he was 
invited to give up the responsibility in 
which he had signally failed. Every one 
wondered at his failure for every one 
knew that he had the capacity to succeed. 
Very few knew that he did not like the 
work and the worry, and so turned to 
diversion for relief. He succeeded later 
in a similar enterprise, but it was be- 
cause his habit of diverting himself had 
pushed him into a corner, from which 
he could only extricate himself by re- 
fusing diversion and keeping at work. 
He has always been grateful that fate 
pushed him into that corner. 

Diversion, when it is taken as a means 
of returning to our work with renewed 
vigor, is not only good, it is necessary; 
but when we use diversion to shirk and 
to enable us to forget that which we 
should face and conquer, then it is slow 
poison. 

There are very many who put more 
196 



DIVERSIONS 

nervous force into playing at having a 
good time than it would take to do a 
large amount of work and do it well. 
They divert themselves in order to avoid 
hard work, or to avoid some problem 
in life rather than face it and solve it, 
or to avoid acknowledging a weakness 
of character in themselves which it would 
take steady effort to mend. Such people 
continue to turn from one diversion to 
another. They constantly feel the need 
of more excitement, like a man who at 
first gets drunk on a little, and keeps up 
the habit of drinking until he has to 
take a great deal to get drunk enough 
to feel pleasantly exhilarated. 

At first diversion is good fun, and then 
later those who depend upon it come to 
the time where they must play at having 
fun, and still later on they cannot even 
play at having fun, but to find diversion 
must rush into excitement. 

If only the people who are seeking to 
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EVERY DAY LIVING 

divert themselves from the unnecessary 
labor of life could realize that the work 
which they are shirking must be done, or 
other work which is harder and more 
painful to do will arise in its place. 

The problem must be solved, or the 
brain of the man who should solve it will 
grow weak and incapable. True charac- 
ter must be strengthened, or the man 
himself will become worse than a non- 
entity. 

One of the popular remedies for ner- 
vous prostration is diversion, and few 
have yet discovered that it is a remedy 
as shallow and temporary in its effects 
as bromide of potassium. Where there 
is no organic disease, nervous prostration 
is caused by inability to harmonize with 
one's environment, and by defects of 
character. To remedy the illness, we 
must remedy the cause. If the patient 
is diverted his nerves may heal for the 
time, but when he returns to old sur- 

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DIVERSIONS 

roundings, or begins life again, so that 
he has no cushions for his selfishness, 
the nervous troubles will return with all 
their depleting power, and every time 
they return there is less chance of even 
a temporary relief by diversion. 

"Forget, forget, forget; if I could only 
forget!" we hear so often said, but no — 
no — no — do not forget, but conquer. 

Let your life be so ordered that around 
your whole horizon there is nothing you 
are afraid to look squarely in the face, 
and deal with until it disappears or until 
it has been turned into the wisdom of 
experience. We must find our freedom 
sooner or later or go to hell. And from 
hell itself, I imagine, there is no chance 
of diversion. 

"These men who spend their lives in 
dissipation, and appear so well and 
strong," a doctor exclaimed to me, "did 
you ever see one of them when he had 
turned an ankle or when he has met 

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EVERY DAY LIVING 

with some such simple accident? He 
goes to pieces entirely, and there is no 
building him up." 

The people who go on diverting them- 
selves rather than to face life like men 
think they are safe, if they think at all, 
sometimes they think they are happy; 
but let some slight test come and they 
go all to pieces. Further diversion is 
out of the question, and they have no 
strength with which to face what is be- 
fore them. 

Facing our problems like men, and 
working them out, gives us nerve muscle, 
if I may be allowed the term, and nerve 
muscle, when once it has started a whole- 
some growth, brings with it constantly 
renewed power. Then, when work is 
allowed its full development, diversion 
is a blessing and a renovator. Then, 
although we divert ourselves for the sake 
of returning with new vigor to the work 
before us, we are wholly concentrated 

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DIVERSIONS 

on the joy of the play while we are in it, 
and the power of enjoyment must in- 
crease as life goes on. Diversion for 
the sake of forgetting, diversion to cover 
up a shirk, diversion to hide laziness, 
is weakening and a sham. Diversion 
for the sake of the renewed life which 
will not allow us to shirk from what is 
before us, diversion for the sake of re- 
ceivii ■ new vigor to work, is part of the 
wholesomeness of life, and no life is 
complete without it. The higher, the 
more useful the life, the more childlike 
and healthy the joy of its diversions. 



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EVERY DAY LIVING 



Our emergencies and tests are our 
thermometers for every day living. We 
may be, living along easily and comfort- 
ably enough and flatter ourselves that 
we are very good sort of people, and 
there will come suddenly and unex- 
pectedly a change of circumstances to 
which we do not adjust ourselves in the 
least. In failing to readjust quickly 
and quietly, all the selfish resistance in us 
is aroused. We are irritable, discourte- 
ous, angry. We are surprised at our- 
selves. We had no idea that such a show 
of ill breeding was possible to us. When, 
however, we have once discovered the 
devils which lie concealed within us, 
ready to jump out when we least expect 

202 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

them, it is interesting to know that we 
take the life out of these same devils by 
the work we do between our tests. 

If we have lived with a sincere desire 
to serve our neighbor, to appreciate and 
respect his point of view, to be courteous 
in spirit as well as in form, to do con- 
scientiously and diligently the duties of 
every day, then when an emergency is 
sprung upon us we are alert and ready 
with light and strength to meet it, and to 
gain new vigor of character and new 
power to serve by the way we meet it. 

When an emergency exposes the self- 
ish resistance within us we can be grate- 
ful that we were permitted to see it, for 
how can we free ourselves from our self- 
ishness if we do not know it is there? 
Bless the emergencies! for they call out 
our weaknesses and show us what we 
have to conquer. Let us always remem- 
ber that it is between the emergencies we 
must work to get the strength to conquer. 

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EVERY DAY LIVING 

I know an old lady who is noted 
among her friends for her apparent wis- 
dom and quiet strength of character. 
I loved and respected her myself for both, 
and felt grateful that I had such a friend 
to whom I could turn for advice. Once 
at a social meeting in her house there 
was a general discussion on a subject 
about which she evidently had very 
decided opinions. It was not a question 
of right or wrong, it was entirely a ques- 
tion of personal understanding and opin- 
ion. When the argument seemed going 
against my friend and some very strong 
opinions were given on the other side, 
she got up from her chair, left the room 
and slammed the door. What had been 
said on the other side had been said 
without any personal feeling whatever. 
My friend was in her own house, those 
who were speaking were invited guests, 
and yet her resistance to any opinion 
but her own was so intense that she 

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EVERY DAY LIVING 

could not repress herself, and not only 
behaved with extreme discourtesy on the 
impulse of the moment, but failed to 
appear again during the evening. 

Her behavior was an astonishment to 
those who not only believed her to be a 
good woman but believed her to be truly 
well bred in spirit and in form. I argued 
to myself that what I had believed to be 
real before was only an appearance, that 
in former emergencies she had merely 
repressed her ill-will and selfish desire 
to dominate, and that as she was getting 
old now her nerves were weaker and 
were losing their power to repress. That 
explanation has proved itself to be true. 

In the same way, when we are tired we 
lose our power to repress, and irritability 
or anger will escape from us in spite of 
ourselves. We may excuse others for 
irritability or unkind or discourteous be- 
havior because they are tired, or ill, but 
we must never excuse ourselves. If the 

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EVERY DAY LIVING 

selfishness which is at the root of the 
irritable or angry resistance had not been 
in us, neither fatigue nor illness could 
have brought it out. When such resist- 
ance appears let us be glad that, if it is in 
us, it could be brought to the surface in 
order that we might know what we have 
to deal with; then let us not only shun 
the expression of it but shun the wrong 
spirit which caused it, and work with 
renewed vigilance between emergencies 
to be upright and open and direct. If 
the old lady who slammed the door had 
taken advantage of every test through- 
out her life to shun the spirit of resist- 
ance whenever it rose up within her, 
when she came to be eighty years old, 
instead of childishly getting up and slam- 
ming the door in the face of her guests, 
she would have been ready to give her 
quiet attention to the opposite side of 
the question and to have answered with 
steady intelligence and even to have 

206 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

been willing to find that she had been 
mistaken and to acknowledge that there 
was some truth which she had not 
understood before, on the other side of 
the subject considered. 

If it is right we want, and not our own 
way, we had as lief find the right through 
another man's mind as through our own. 

The necessity for the truest kind of 
every day living is to work between tests 
in order to be ready for every emergency 
that is permitted to us, and not to allow 
ourselves to repress the spirit of resist- 
ance but to bring it entirely to the sur- 
face in our own minds and shun it cleanly. 

Whatever wrong feeling in ourselves 
we refuse to face and acknowledge leaves 
a contraction in the brain which is sure 
to make trouble for us sooner or later. 
The better we know that and the more 
truly we can act upon it the sooner we 
feel our real freedom. A good physi- 
cian would not allow a taint of poison 

207 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

to stay in his patient's blood, he would 
know that it could only work havoc if he 
did. We should not allow ourselves to 
repress any touch of selfish resistance 
in our brains, for that will eventually 
work worse havoc than the poison in the 
blood. 

Every day living is a study and a very 
healthy and very interesting study if we 
choose to make it so. When we realize 
that all we can do is to fulfil the proper 
conditions of life, and that everything 
else is absolutely beyond our control, 
we shall be saved much unnecessary 
strain and anxiety, and the study will 
grow more and more wholesome. 

A healthy, solid, common-sense, every 
day trust is what we most of us need. 
Trust in what? Let us call it trust in 
the infallible working of laws. If I am 
working in electricity I must first obey 
the fixed laws of electricity or my lights 
will not burn, my telephones will not 

208 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

work, my automobiles will not run. 
If I am working in any science I must 
first obey the laws of that science, or 
the results of my work will amount to 
nothing. By obeying the laws that I 
know I am putting myself in the way of 
discovering other laws that I do not 
know. The more true and intelligent 
and exact the obedience, the more the 
light and power increases by which we 
can see clearly and act effectively. Cer- 
tainly it is not likely that there should be 
fixed laws by which the operations of 
natural science are controlled and that, 
at the same time, the spiritual operations 
of life should be the result of a mere 
confession and hodge-podge of chances 
and happenings. The fixed laws that 
are to be obeyed in well ordered, every 
day living are just as immutable as those 
to be obeyed in the every day working 
of a steam engine. There is onlv this 
difference, and it is radical. The fixed 
209 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

laws of natural science are, comparatively 
speaking, dead, because they deal with 
mere material substance; whereas, the 
laws of a human character are all alive, 
because they deal with the living causes 
which lie behind all material substances. 

We may obey the laws of natural 
science merely in the letter, with entire 
success, for the spirit of the operation 
will not affect the success of their appli- 
cation so long as the laws themselves 
are literally applied. But with the laws 
of human character, — which are those 
of the growth of the soul, it is very dif- 
ferent; for here we are dealing with 
spirit, and, unless the laws applied are 
filled with the sincere and unselfish 
spirit of the operator their application 
is useless and unproductive. 

I may appear to be on the most ami- 
cable relations with my neighbor and 
be hating him heartily in secret. I may 
appear to be upright and honest in all 
210 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

my business relations and may at the 
same time be cheating with the spirit of 
a thief. I may appear to be eminently 
respectable in all phases of my life. I 
may be one of the pillars of the church, 
a reformer in politics, a social light, 
punctilious in every form of courtesy 
and good breeding, and at the same 
time be rotten to the very core. 

In this latter case I am obeying all the 
laws of every day living in the letter, 
but all this external obedience is for the 
sake of my appearance before my fellow- 
men. In spirit and in essence I am not 
obeying a single law, and the vitality of 
the fixed laws of every day living is in 
the spirit alone. If we obey the spirit 
of the laws obedience to the letter comes 
as a matter of course. If we obey only 
the letter we are nothing as to the spirit, 
and any good sharp emergency may at 
any time bring our feeble respectability 
down about our ears. 
211 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

Why some of the eminently respect- 
able and insincere observers of the letter 
of the law should get found out and some 
should not it is impossible to say. The 
answer to that lies with an infinite in- 
telligence and not with a finite one. But 
it seems evident that emergencies are 
coming more often than ever before to 
prove openly who is hollow and dead 
and who is solid and alive. Any one 
who is interested in the breadth and 
depth of every day living is as grateful 
for the emergencies which lay open the 
faults of a body of men in the nation 
as they are for those which enable them 
to discover flaws in their own individual 
characters. 

The first necessity is to do our duties 
to the very best of our ability, and to take 
pleasure in them. To do every good and 
useful service outside of the immediate 
duties that we can do without interfering 
with our regular work, and to enjoy all 

212 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

the pleasures that will help us to do our 
work better. If we add to that a good 
hearty willingness to be found out, we 
shall be pretty well established in our 
line of sincere action. We cannot enter 
deeply into the spirit of obedience to 
law without a constant growth of living 
interest and power. 

Just one thing more, all laws must 
radiate from some center, all the opera- 
tions of natural law on our planet may, 
as far as we know, be traced to the heat 
and light of the sun; so may the opera- 
tion of spiritual laws be traced to 
the spirit of God himself, who is the 
central fact of the universe. A creator 
could not give his creatures any power 
which does not exist in himself. God 
has given us personal consciousness, must 
he not have a personal consciousness of 
his own ? As all spiritual laws come 
from him, obedience to them must lead 
us to him, and thus it will be revealed to 
218 



EVERY DAY LIVING 

us that our relations to God and to our 
fellow men are not merely akin but in- 
exorably bound up in the same identical 
law. 

Only by watchful obedience to the 
spirit of God's law do we find true power 
in every detail and in the broad extension 
of every day living. 



214 



OCT 



IIP 



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